Martha's blog

Requesting Your Prayers

2008-10-22T10:34:00.001-05:00

I’m a little late writing for this month’s newsletter. It has been an eventful time. In a nutshell, I have had a set back with the “cellular challenge,” a.k.a. breast cancer. I’m confident that I will come through the new treatment regime with flying colors and great healing. I’m also confident that all the complementary approaches I embrace will make a tremendous difference as well. In addition, my work helps keep me centered, productive, and blessed with a strong sense of purpose. Praying and meditating each day are vital to my life and my healing.

Since first being diagnosed in December 1999, I have been the grateful beneficiary of lots and lots of prayer from family, friends and even people I have never met face to face. I hope you will keep me in your prayers and see me healed and whole. Prayer is truly the most powerful medicine there is.

Debbi Mygatt

Throughout the past week of scans and more scans, I’ve been amazingly calm, peaceful, and confident. I know that is because of the prayers that have been offered for me since I discovered that a recent blood test showed warning signs. On the day after I got the blood report, I attended a healing workshop in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where my daughter, Lucie, lives. Later that week, while still enjoying a visit with my Connecticut family, I had a wonderful prayer and healing session with Debbi Mygatt who heads the healing ministry at the Jesse Lee Memorial Methodist Church in Ridgefield. At my last Ron Roth’s Celebrating Life Intensive in May, one of my friends there, Doug Abbott, told me about Debbi. Since I was going to Ridgefield after the Celebrating Life experience in Chicago, I called Debbi when I arrived and was able to have a healing session with her then as well.

I’ve learned through the years that healing is sometimes instant – and I experienced that in 2003 – and sometimes it occurs over time. The keys are faith and a mind focused on healing, not fear. That isn’t always easy, given all the cultural fears about cancer that we absorb on a daily basis. Since this is breast cancer awareness month, there is no escaping the subject. While I appreciate the concern and all the efforts to find “the” cure, I doubt there will ever be one simple curative treatment that works for all the individuals that face this particular health challenge. I believe it is a mind, body, and spirit issue and that all these dimensions need to be addressed in any healing process.

I’m looking at all these factors in my life – stressors that are part of the whole picture my body is presenting. And I’m journaling, writing, and being as creative as possible with the spiritual guidance I receive. I’m also blessed with friends who are helping me in wonderfully loving ways. I do my best to take life one moment at a time and to be very attentive to acknowledging all that I feel so grateful for each day. Forgiving quickly after acknowledging my feelings is also vital. And experiencing life as directly and innocently as possible is another important aspect of healing. That means getting out of my head and living from my heart, taking a fresh look at the world and life around me without letting prior judgments and experiences color what I see.

It isn’t always easy to ask for help. Over the last nine years, I’ve learned a lot about allowing myself to do just that. Writing this article is a response to guidance I received while journaling when I was in Connecticut. I resisted for a while, but I’m doing it now. I thank you for your love and support, your prayers, and your reading this newsletter. Writing it is always a special pleasure for me and hearing from you in response to what I write is a great bonus. I will be keeping you in my heart and prayers as well.

If you or someone you know and love is facing a life challenge similar to mine, my book, The Heart of Healing: Facing Cancer and Other Life-Threatening Illnesses, might help you or them find hope. I also suggest reading The Healing Path of Prayer by Ron Roth. This is a book that came to me shortly after I was diagnosed. It helped transform my fears, gave me hope, changed my life, and led me to amazing experiences of healing. Another book I’ve been re-reading in recent days is Love Without End…Jesus Speaks by Glenda Green. It is a powerful resource that helps me tremendously. My friend, Evalie, recently loaned me a new book, Cell-Level Healing: The Bridge from Soul to Cell by Joyce Whiteley Hawkes, Ph.D. It includes specific information and suggestions for sending healing messages to all the cells in the body for cancer and a variety of other physical illnesses as well. I recommend it.

In recent weeks, we’ve seen just how destructive fear can be when it spreads like wild fire through the economies of the world. Many are recalling Franklin Roosevelt’s words, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The same wisdom applies to all of life. I’ve often thought that cancer is another word for fear. A health crisis or an economic one like we are facing today call us to grow beyond thinking that externals like money and what it can buy can bring us what our souls seek Lasting joy, fulfillment, and healing come from within and from our connection through prayer with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

Don’t be fooled. There are no substitutes! No one and nothing can rob you of the strength and inner peace that come from your sacred heart through prayer and meditation. Love is always stronger than fear, and love is the core of who we are. It flows from the sacred heart within us. Love heals. Our prayers help center us in love and connect us with joy and hope. Please pray for the world, our country in this chaotic time, and for yourself and your family. Ask for the help you need, the help all of us need, the help that is always available to us from Spirit when we are bold and humble enough to request it.

With grateful thanks and blessings,

Martha

From Adversaries to Allies

2008-09-12T12:56:00.000-05:00

Over the years I’ve found that football metaphors work well when I’m talking with couples in my office here in the land of the Sooners and Cowboys. Now that the season is upon us once again, I want to share with you some of my thoughts about the importance of teamwork in intimate relationships as well as in winning football games.

Unlike football teams, couples don’t have a coach – until they decide to hire one - and there are no effective referees on the playing field. Left on their own, they often get stuck in the power struggle stage of relationship building where they function more as adversaries than teammates. No one wins. But they keep playing until a crisis of some kind wakes them up to the need for change.

Fortunately when they first met they were great allies. They were happy when they were together, fascinated with learning about each other, and hopeful of good things to come in the future. They cooperated easily, and they loved to find dreams and goals they had in common. They built strong bonds between them, bonds that help them hang in together even when their emerging differences are painful.

Inevitably the chemistry of attraction that drew them together became less intense as their commitment deepened and they settled into building their relationship. They discovered that each of them was human, not quite as perfect as their initial idealized impression had seemed. With the realities of daily living introducing them to one another in the harsher light of day, they found that there were very real challenges to be faced.

Less hardy souls often take this opportunity to inform their partner that though they love him or her, they are not “in love” as they first thought. They move on to find another romance to enjoy while the first three to four months of chemistry last.

Reasonably mature partners realize that creating and sustaining an enduring committed relationship requires forging ahead into the challenging territory that lies beyond the initial chemistry of attraction. As their bonding deepens, they build a boundary around their relationship that defines them as a couple. The more important the relationship becomes to them, they more their fears and personal vulnerabilities come into play.

One may fear abandonment. The other may be sensitive to anything that sounds possibly rejecting. Gradually each erects defensive stances designed to protect from getting hurt by the other. One gradually may become controlling, demanding, jealous, and suspicious. The other may placate, cajole, plead, apologize, and try not to upset his or her partner. Instead of being the open, honest, safe, and comfortable pair they were early on, they now operate out of fear of losing what they have together. The irony is that their efforts to avoid getting hurt often help create the eventual hurt and loss they fear.

They shift from being great allies to treating each other as adversaries battling for control of the relationship they both want to sustain. They lose touch with parts of themselves as they try to erase their differences by adapting to or trying to change the other. Gradually they develop an enmeshed or symbiotic relationship. It is as if one of them takes the position that “We are one and I am The one,” and the other silently agrees and takes on the complementary stance that “We are one and you are The one.”

The one who is not The one feels like a victim and harbors more and more hidden rage and resentment. The one who is The one loses respect for the partner who adapts to his or her demands and denouncements. They don’t know how to talk about their needs, feelings, and frustrations without ending up in a huge fight that creates more pain and hurt. Instead they battle one another trying to hold together a relationship they value with a partner they devalue and mistrust.

It’s bedlam – Cowboys vs. Sooners – in the battle for dominance in the annual Oklahoma football wars. In football there are teams working together to win the game. In marriage and intimate partnership it is one person against another in a war they may wage for years. Unfortunately if they have children, they may create informal alliances with one or more of their kids against their mate. Dad and daughter or son may stand together against mom and son or daughter. The ongoing competition and fighting are devastating to everyone as they struggle to make the relationship fit their separate ideas of how it ought to be.

Each partner is convinced that it is the other who needs to change. In their frustrated and fearful state of mind, it seems reasonable to try to “remodel” the other rather than consider changing themselves. Attack, blame, and criticism – what I call the ABC’s of power struggle – abound.

They compete with one another. Which one is the good guy and which is the bad guy? Who is right and who is wrong? Who is to blame and who is innocent? Who will call the shots and who will adapt to the other’s demands? One assumes the role of authority and tells the other how he or she ought to do things, think, believe, or act. The other silently resents being treated like a child and manages to rebel and resist, sometimes in active and other times in more passive, hidden ways.

Unhappiness builds and festers. Addictive behaviors emerge or escalate as each tries to cope with the tension in their relationship. They may become more actively abusive with one another, resorting to name calling, bullying, even pushing, hitting, slapping, or otherwise attacking. If they have children, the kids’ behavior reflects the pain they experience at home. They may have difficulties at school and problems getting along with friends. Some will act out and become more and more defiant. Others may resort to being overly adaptive and too good. Physical illnesses may strike. Siblings may seem to fight constantly. They may become addicted to computer games or food.

The whole family system is crying for help. War between mom and dad doesn’t work. No one wins. Everyone loses. This isn’t a game. This is life and help is badly needed. Unfortunately it often takes a major crisis to wake the couple up to the need for change and help.

That wake-up call may come when one partner demands a divorce. Or an affair may be discovered or confessed. Sometimes it is a “mid-life crisis” in one partner that sends the other for help. Addictive behaviors may become so extreme that they can no longer be tolerated. Unresolved grief over the loss of a job, home, or family members may be acted out unconsciously by one person wanting to leave the marriage to avoid possible future vulnerability to loss and pain. Or a child may have problems severe enough that they can no longer be ignored.

In response to the wake-up call, couples may decide to get help to heal their relationship. Or they may choose to end it through divorce. Sadly some endure in their unhappy situation rather than risk making necessary changes. Eventually they may seek help for one of their children rather than also acknowledging their need for help for themselves and their relationship. It may take prodding from the child’s school, a referral from his or her pediatrician, or a mandate from the legal system to force them to take this step. Hopefully the therapist they find suggests that working with the parents is important in helping the child and the whole family.

Once a coach / healer / helper is found and hired, the job of transforming an adversarial relationship system into a well functioning family team can begin. I often tell my clients I am like the coach on the sidelines at a football game. My job is to help them see patterns in their interactions that help or hinder their relationship. I also introduce them to new ways to play the game based on team work, mutual trust and respect, and excellent, effective communication. In addition we look for old emotional wounds that need healing and discover how to release buried pain and apply the soothing salve of forgiveness and letting go.

As a couples’ therapist, I’m not just the coach. I’m also the referee, making sure both partners play by the rules of mutual regard and respect as they interact in my office. During their sessions, I have them practice new ways of communicating and interacting that help them move beyond their old adversarial patterns of relating into becoming genuine allies, peers, and teammates for life.

I point out to them that the patterns in their relationship simply are. They make sense given the family context each of them experienced growing up. There is nothing to criticize or judge, but there is lots to learn that will help. Couples are empowered by being able to see patterns in their interactions rather than remaining blind to them. Seeing a pattern gives them a choice they didn’t have previously. They can continue in that pattern or shift out of it. Remaining blind to a pattern keeps them at its mercy.

There are loving patterns to notice – when they appreciate and affirm one another and are supportive, thoughtful, kind, and forgiving with their words and behavior. There also are plenty of fearful patterns to learn to recognize. One example is blaming the other person for what one is blind to in himself. Another is reacting defensively and attacking one’s partner rather than hearing that person out and being open to his or her point of view, even when it is different from one’s own.

There also are times when one or both partners are triggered by present time events into unconsciously reliving scary experiences from childhood. When this happens, they go into an entranced state of mind and react automatically as they did when they were children or as their frightening parents behaved with them. This mystifies their partner who knows something is wrong but doesn’t know how to respond to or stop the drama.

There also are communication patterns to attend to and correct. A football team huddles before each play. Every player has to be know what is about to happen. Otherwise there would be chaos on the field. Couples also need to huddle regularly and keep each other informed about activities, concerns, goals, and emotional issues. I teach all the couples I work with to use Safe Dialogue when they talk about challenging topics. I’ve written about and described Safe Dialogue in previous articles as well as in my book, Loving Your Partner Without Losing Your Self. Safe Dialogue is a powerful process that teaches new skills and brings deep healing to both partners as they experience being heard accurately, mirrored, validated, and empathized with by their mate. It also teaches couples to express their needs, feelings, concerns, and desires respectfully and honestly without attacking or blaming the other.

While we are working to establish new habits of relating as allies rather than adversaries, I also am helping both partners recognize that their relationship struggles with one another reflect their inner unrest and battling within themselves. What I reject in you mirrors what I also reject in myself. For example, if I think anger is a terrible thing because that’s what I was taught in my family of origin, I will be frightened of your anger and try to get you to hide it as I hide mine. The lesson for me is to learn to recognize and accept my angry feelings and handle them in healthy ways. Your lesson may be to learn to acknowledge and contain your anger more effectively while also being open to the vulnerable feelings that often lie beneath anger in a person who tends to be volatile and easily over aroused.

Both of us need to become more whole by learning to accept all the parts of us – even the shadow parts we were taught were unacceptable. We have trouble seeing those shadow parts in ourselves but we have X-ray vision for them when they show up in others, especially a mate. As we learn to accept the humanness of our partner, we also are learning to accept our own lack of perfection. And as we accept ourselves, even those parts we once thought were shameful, we also are more able to accept and understand our partner. We are becoming more whole and complete and more at peace within ourselves. Our growing inner peace and self-acceptance are reflected by growing peace and acceptance of our partner.

Becoming allies in partnership is about being the love that we are and knowing others as the love that they are as well. It is about calling upon the wisdom of the heart and knowing the mind and intellect as servants of the heart – not its master. Allies consciously choose cooperation over competition. They are committed to being honest – sharing their needs, feelings, goals, desires, and concerns and owning them as their own, not as a deficit in their partner. They listen with open hearts to one another, seeking to understand and accept their differences while being open to synergistic possibilities that often emerge from being open to varying points of view.

Allies forgive readily and let go of past hurts. They take responsibility routinely. They do not expect perfection. Instead they laugh at their mistakes and learn from them. They honor the power of healthy, respectful humor and they are committed to having fun together, being romantic, and spending ample time together to nurture their relationship. They stand by one another during tough times and are firm with one another when they need to be. They also teach their children to be team players and are aware of the power of the words they speak and the examples they set in their family. They honor themselves, their partners and children, and their Spiritual Source, remembering always the great commandment: love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

Challenges of Change

2008-08-10T10:33:00.000-05:00

Your life is not like it used to be. You’ve been through a change – a profound shift you didn’t expect but had to embrace. There is much to grieve as you face your losses even as there is much to celebrate as you feel gratitude for what is emerging through the transformative process you’re experiencing.

Major changes – whatever they happen to be - present great challenges. We tell ourselves that we know life is about constantly shifting circumstances and experiences. One moment leads to the next. We must let go and move along with the flow of life.

Sometimes that isn’t quite as easy as it may sound. We feel comforted, safe, and in control when we have stable conditions that we are accustomed to handling. All too often we waste precious energy trying to avoid change because we fear the emotional pain we will experience when we let go of what once was and face what now is that must be accepted and embraced.

As a psychotherapist, I’ve seen people keep themselves in miserable relationships, jobs, and situations because they are settled into a life style that though unhappy is at least familiar and accustomed. They are afraid to look honestly at their changing needs, feelings, desires, and dreams lest they discover that they are cheating themselves in profoundly disturbing ways.

Their motto seems to be, “Better to hang in and endure than risk upsetting the status quo.” Meanwhile they tell themselves they are doing this for the good of others. They ignore the costs to themselves and to those they “sacrifice themselves for.” Their unhappiness slips out in hurtful ways when frustrations overwhelm them and they behave in mean and discounting ways toward the people they think they are helping.

And I’ve noticed myself, attached to the ruts I’m in and resistant to changing them for fear I’ll be hurt in some way if I dare follow my heart and do what seems risky and new. All these patterns are variations on the theme of trying to control life by insuring against possible vulnerability. We imagine that if we’re just smart enough and careful enough we can avoid the mistakes, hurts and losses that are simply part of the fabric of life.

We act like the tail that thinks it wags the dog. There is something much greater going on than our small conscious minds can conceive. We are guided and directed by our Souls and the Holy Spirit. Our challenge is to let go, surrender our illusions of control, and tune into the gentle promptings and cues we receive from sources much wiser and informed than our small earth bound minds can perceive.

One incredibly helpful discipline that assists in letting go of control, being present in the present, and flowing with the vicissitudes of life is accepting “what is” rather than resisting whatever it is that we encounter. Last fall a good friend who went with me to a first chemotherapy treatment session brought me a book to read called A Thousand Names for Joy by Byron Katie. The theme of the book is to stop resisting what you encounter in life. Instead embrace it as perfect for the moment you are in, perfect in some way you may not and don’t need to understand, just right for you despite appearing to be something you don’t want or don’t like.

I read that book slowly and carefully. I practiced noticing when I felt myself tightening up and resisting whatever was happening in the present. I let go and let whatever was happening be just right for me in that moment. And I found that I even enjoyed and relaxed through those weekly treatment sessions. I felt better and better, less and less stressed. My work times became effortless. What peace and pleasure to surrender and allow rather than fight against and resist!

Fighting against and resisting can be as subtle as wishing things were different, not liking standing in line, longing for the good ole days, wishing you were somewhere other than where you happen to be or with someone other than your current companion. It can be as big as knowing you need to make a big change and telling yourself that would be impossible or would anger other people or disappoint someone else, or be too big a risk for you to take. It can be as insidious as being critical of your mate and trying to get him to change rather than accepting him as he is and loving him even if he isn’t exactly the way you think he ought to be.

Like a mountain stream, life is constantly moving. Now is not the now that was when I started writing this article. Your now when you read these words will be different still. Each moment is unique, not to be recaptured but precious in its own time and space. Living fully is being open to that now - whatever and however it is. Loving is accepting you in each moment and accepting others in their moment just as you are in yours. Healing flows from accepting what is with me and with you. Faith flows from experiencing the perfection of it all whether or not we can see or fathom how that perfection can be.

Change stirs powerful feelings – the grief and sadness of loss, the excitement of new beginnings and new possibilities, the anger of no longer having what we thought we had to have, the courage to do the hard work required to get out of our ruts and on with what comes next in our lives, the shame we may feel if we tell ourselves we should have done things differently or guilt ourselves for our mistakes. To flow through life changes with grace and fluidity we have to allow and embrace those feelings whatever they happen to be. Expressing and acknowledging our emotions frees us from the hold of the past and releases our energy so we can move on and be fully at home in the present.

If we block, deny, and hold onto those emotions, we cripple ourselves in myriad ways and keep ourselves stuck in the past. We may get physically ill, have unexplained aches, pains, stomach troubles, headaches, depression, anxiety, overwhelmed feelings, and mental, emotional and spiritual shutdown. By denying our feelings we fight against the flow of the river of life. Like fish trying to swim upstream, we get battered, bruised, and exhausted in the process.

Often we don’t realize how programmed we are in this culture to avoid what we feel. Instead we go to our heads. We over-think. We obsess about details that aren’t all that important. We go numb. We go to sleep. We isolate ourselves with work, alcohol, drugs, computers, and other handy addictions.

Our early training is like a huge undertow that pulls us down and away from riding the waves of life – the ups and downs of feelings we encounter everyday. I still have to remind myself to check in with my feelings – to consciously ask myself what I’ve tried to avoid by staying busy and keeping myself distracted from the emotional dimension of my life.

Grieving, crying, writing about our pain, pounding anger out with a punching bag or on a pillow, having a friend listen, mirror, and validate our feelings are all wonderful ways of letting go and freeing ourselves to move on with life. Despite what we’ve been taught, feelings are nothing to fear. They are our friends and allies in clearing away what is finished in our lives so we can move into what is offered us now. (For more on Emotional Digestion read the May 2008 article.)

Every emotional release we allow enlivens us, frees our energy, inspires us to explore new the dimensions of possibility we can see when our vision isn’t clouded by the fog of clinging to what is past. Don’t just hide your feelings and put the past behind you as we are often told to do. Instead experience it fully – then you really can let it go. Done is done. Now is now. Embrace it. Look forward to the surprises tomorrow may bring. Feel what you feel. Open your heart to life! Embrace the changes you long to make.

Blossoming Roses

2008-07-28T15:22:00.003-05:00

I lost a wonderful friend recently. She died rather suddenly though she had been ill and not diagnosed until recently. She was the kind of friend who showed her love through actions more than words. She knew what was needed and she gave herself to meet those needs.

Last fall when I started a new round of chemotherapy she was at my house waiting to welcome me home every Friday after my treatments. She would have walked my dogs, Maggie and Summer, so they would be chilled out when I got back. After settling me in, she read her latest novel on the sofa with Summer lying with her head in her lap and her tummy being scratched and Maggie asleep right at her feet. She stayed until she was sure I was OK and comfortable. I felt so cared for and loved – and safe. She was here for me, and I was grateful and blessed. Now she has died of the illness she helped me through. Who could have known or guessed that this would happen?

It is a perfect example of what I often say to my clients. We live in the face of life, not knowing what the next page or the next chapter will present. None of us knows what tomorrow will be. Life is a mystery we create with everyday we are privileged to live. It behooves us to be loving, generous, and grateful for all the opportunities we have to let others know how much we value and respect them. It also helps to be conscious of the gifts each day offers. Moment by moment the river of life flows on through changing territory that sometimes surprises us with joys and sorrows we couldn’t have anticipated, planned, or prevented.

Friday when I came home from treatment, her car wasn’t in my driveway. She wasn’t here. Maggie and Summer weren’t drunk with the love and attention she showered on them. We carried on, and we are grieving for what was so precious and no longer is. Life has changed, and change is a big challenge. All too often we waste precious energy trying to avoid it, because we fear the emotional pain we will experience when we let go of what once was and face what now is that must be accepted and embraced.

So I’ve cried a lot... I’ve been angry too. I’m also relieved to know my friend is no longer in pain as she was. I’ve felt her presence. Before I got the phone call telling me she had died, I awoke feeling wonderful – feeling whole and healthy and totally blessed. A picture came into my mind. I saw a vase of fully blossomed roses that were a lovely salmon pink color. I was grateful for the beautiful image.

A few minutes later I was meditating when I heard the phone ring. I chose not to interrupt the process I was in and take the call at that moment. I wondered if it might be my daughter calling from Europe where she and her family have been vacationing. Then I knew. My friend had died in the night. It was 7:00 AM, and I was being notified.

So I wasn’t surprised when I heard the message and then returned the call. When I got off the phone, I suddenly felt exhausted – a stark contrast to my feelings less than an hour before. I knew I needed to cry. So I finished making the bed and sat down to pet my dogs she loved. That started my tears flowing. I surrendered to them as I’ve learned to do. I let them flow. I didn’t hold back. I felt better. My energy came back. It was no longer being consumed by the effort required to keep those tears of pain and loss at bay. A little while later I realized that the roses I had seen in that spontaneous awakening image were the color of the bouquet of rosebuds I had taken to my friend soon after she went to the hospital. I believe that image was her way of letting me know she had crossed over to the world of spirit – now fully blossomed into new life.

I recalled a quote I’ve referred to often in the past two weeks. I encountered it in the first chapter of an amazing book titled Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow. The author is Elizabeth Lesser whose writing is wonderful artistry and a healing gift to read. She tells of finding this quote on a painting of a rose that was shown to her in a rug shop in Jerusalem when she was visiting there during a difficult period early in her adult life.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.--Anais Nin

My friend has blossomed. She left the material world. Her body was worn out, and she let it go. I miss her, and I know she is still close by. She is giving me gifts in her dying as she gave me great gifts in her living. I thank her, and I thank God for her. Her dying challenges me to blossom ever more fully in the life I am blessed to continue living.

Her name was Susan Courtney Fowler. She loved people, children, and animals. She was a teacher and a coach. She was shy. She was private. She changed lives with her love, her wisdom, her persistence, her patience, and her presence. She lived well. She remains alive in the hearts of all of us who knew and loved her.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

Two Parents + a Good Marriage = Children Who Thrive

2008-06-18T12:55:00.000-05:00

During this Mother’s and Father’s Day season, I want to share some reflections on the importance both parents play in raising healthy children who thrive. Mom’s and dad’s marriage is like a garden they nurture over the years as they deepen their love and commitment to each other. In this well tended garden, their children bloom like the beautiful unique flowers each of them is born to be.

It takes two parents and a good marriage for children to thrive. Both moms and dads are essential to their children’s well being. The strength of their marriage is the foundation of their kids’ world. When they relate lovingly with one another, their fulfillment nourishes and energizes them to meet their children’s needs and allow their little ones the space they need to develop into the people they are meant to be.

If their marriage is troubled their children move into the void between them and become surrogate mates as well as the objects of too many of their battles. Then those little ones – overwhelmed and overstimulated by the emotional pain that surrounds them – act out their parents’ anger and hurt by misbehaving or being too good and perfect to be real, healthy kids.

An acting-out child calls attention to the pain in his family and focuses his parents’ attention on dealing with his behavior. By becoming their common problem, he gives them a reason to unite -- to cope with him. He is the target of their concern, their anger, frustration, and hurt which he expresses while they pretend there is nothing amiss in their marriage.

A too good child also is in pain. Her more socially acceptable strategy for coping helps mom and dad sustain the illusion that all is well with them. She carries their troubles inside her while pushing herself to achieve, perform, and shine – doing her child’s best to bring happiness to her troubled parents by helping disguise their pain.

What needs to happen to keep children from being in these too hurtful places? Here are some guidelines to help you assess both strengths and challenge areas in your parenting equation:

1. Ideally Mom and Dad respect each other as individuals who also are marriage partners. They grow beyond the emotional fusion of their initial fascination with one another into full differentiation as whole people able to connect deeply, share openly and appropriately (without fearing the other’s reaction), play joyfully, and tolerate sustained periods of pleasure in each other’s presence. (One way to accomplish this is through learning to practice the Safe Dialogue Process described in my book, Loving Your Partner Without Losing Your Self which is available through my website, www.MarthaBeveridge.com.)

2. Mom and Dad appreciate the unique gifts each brings to their parenting responsibilities. Mom is her child’s safe haven. She provides the womb space he needs for comfort, unconditional love, understanding, and support. She loves him and is there for him no matter what. Once he is conceived, she has no choice but to fully accept him, growing as he does out of her very being. Her job is to love without reservations and gradually to release him – from the painful first letting go of his physical birth to the gradual releasing of his psychological birthing into the larger world beyond his family. She assists him in leaving home step by step – from preschool to kindergarten, grade school, high school, college, and eventually marriage and a family of his own. Balancing love and limits with forgiveness, grief, and release is mother's great nurturing privilege and responsibility.

3. Where there is little choice about a mother’s relationship with her child, Dad decides to be present to fulfill his role. Because he chooses to relate to his child, he also teaches her how to relate to others - her friends and teachers. He helps her discover that in the larger world there are people who won’t, like her mom, love her and make allowances for her, no matter what. Dad imparts socialization skills and instructs her about the realities of the world beyond their home. He models and teaches responsibility, accountability, love, warmth, and reliability.

4. Dad and Mom set limits and invoke consequences, allowing their children to express and live through their angry, disappointed feelings when they don’t get what they want. Together Mom and Dad stand firm, accepting their children’s feelings without being manipulated by them, giving in to them, or overreacting to them out of fear. They are consistent in teaching their children to experience the consequences of their choices.

5. If they have trouble handling limits and emotions, they seek help as a couple to heal their childhood wounds around these issues and to learn to practice the skills they need so they don’t re-enact their parents’ hurtful ways of relating to feelings and discipline. (Thomas Phelan’s book, 1,2,3 Magic is an excellent resource for parents who need help with effective, loving discipline.)

6. Both Mom and Dad recognize that raising children challenges them to deal with their childhood history. When they have a child who is the age they were when a trauma occurred, they are reminded of their feelings about big changes or painful losses like divorces, deaths, and illnesses as well as hurtful behavior from others. Relating to their child stirs up their suppressed grief, stresses their marriage, and disrupts their parenting. If they are conscious of what is happening within them, they can claim a valuable opportunity to heal their childhood wounds. If not, they may re-enact what they experienced, behaving as their parents did and wounding their children as they were wounded.

7. Mom and Dad recognize that one parent cannot do it all alone. They honor their commitment to each other and to their responsibilities as parents. If their marriage is in trouble, they get help and work together to grow through their difficulties. They realize that changing partners – attractive as it may seem – does not solve their individual growth challenges but merely delays their addressing them. They also accept that one partner alone is not and cannot be totally to blame for what ails their marriage.

8. If ultimately they decide to divorce, they continue to work to improve their communication and their relationship with each other so their children have the best chance possible to continue to relate to both of them. They do not disparage each other in their children’s presence. If they remarry, they teach their children that it is OK to love both their birth parents and their step-parents. They encourage step-parents to be full partners in parenting.

9. Mom and Dad remain clear that their relationship is paramount. They nurture and sustain their marriage year by year so when their children leave home, mom and dad are ready to enjoy being a couple once more.

10. They help their children grow-up and learn to be responsible for themselves so they are ready to leave home when they finish their schooling and move into the working world. They give their children chores, responsibilities, and allowances to help them learn to manage their time, money, and school work. They let go and don’t remind their kids of what they need to do on their own initiative. They allow their children to experience the consequences of the choices they make. They don’t rescue them from those consequences even though they don’t enjoy seeing their kids lose privileges or allowance funds when they don’t make responsible choices. Because as parents they are healthy individuals and marriage partners, they don’t try to cling to their children and keep them dependent upon them to avoid the grief of an eventual empty nest.

Successful parents are also good parents for themselves. They nurture themselves so they have the energy and resources they need to parent their children as well. They are aware that they are the most powerful life models their children have. They teach them about life, what they can expect from others, what they should tolerate and not tolerate from themselves and others, what their values are, what fun and joy are, and what to expect from life.

Especially in the first six years of a child’s life, successful parents realize they are programming his or her mind – installing the soft ware that will run unconsciously for the rest of the child’s life - until and unless he or she works diligently to delete that soft ware and install new programs that are more functional. It’s an awesome responsibility and privilege parents hold. The rewards are among the greatest life offers us.

It isn’t easy. This eighteen plus year journey takes us through difficult territory. As parents we are challenged in all the ways we most need to grow. Not only are we powerful teachers for our children but they also are amazing teachers for us. They know exactly where our buttons are. They don’t mind pushing them. They mirror the best and the most difficult within us. We love and accept them with all our hearts. They call us to love and accept ourselves unconditionally as well.

Emotional Digestion

2008-05-13T14:12:00.002-05:00

We know the importance of fully digesting the food we eat. The moment anything interferes with that vital process, we feel physical discomfort that tells us something is wrong. And we seek relief.

Fully digesting our feelings is equally crucial to our well being. Denying or burying feelings creates the unpleasant experience that I call emotional indigestion.

The symptoms associated with physical indigestion are unmistakable. There are clear signals that alert us to emotional indigestion as well. Unfortunately we may not recognize those signals or know how to treat them.

Perhaps you’ve experienced typical distresses like these. You’re out of sorts and tell yourself that you’re having a bad day. You may feel down, depressed, or anxious. Or you may be touchy, unusually irritable, and short of patience. Many people suddenly are tired – sometimes so exhausted that they can barely function. Others sleep, drink too much, smoke compulsively, overeat, gamble, get sick, use drugs, or feel desperate for sex. Picking a fight with a mate or child is commonplace. Battling over inconsequential issues lets off steam but doesn’t address the real source of the pain that lies beneath aggressive behavior.

All these signals remind us that denied feelings don’t go away even though we may do our best to block or hide them. Instead of choosing to acknowledge and validate our feelings, then express them directly and appropriately when this is necessary and advisable, we unconsciously act them out in ways that hurt us, harm other people, and damage our relationships. We suffer from emotional indigestion that upsets us and is contagious to others as well.

Fortunately there is a cure for what ails us. Relief comes quickly when we make friends with our feelings and learn to digest them effectively. I suggest a six-phase process that heals emotional indigestion as surely as Pepto-Bismol relieves physical digestive difficulties.

The first phase of this process involves noticing and naming what you feel. Feelings are described by a single word like angry, sad, scared, joyful, or successful. You can ask yourself, “Am I feeling ashamed, guilty, apathetic, frightened, wishful, angry, proud, brave, neutral, accepting, successful, loving, joyful, or even blissful? As you identify your feelings, you may uncover layers of different emotions that unfold as you embrace them. Look beneath anger for sadness and hurt, fears and regrets as well as what you appreciate about the person or situation you are addressing.

The second phase of the digestive process overlaps the first. As you notice and name what you feel, you breathe deeply, inhaling and exhaling fully. This allows your breath to support you as you feel what you feel. Deep breathing calms you and helps your feelings move through you so you can assimilate and release them. Be aware of the tendency many people have to hold their breath in order not to feel emotions they are afraid to experience. Holding or short circuiting your breath contributes to emotional indigestion. Breathing fully and freely helps heal it.

Phase three overlaps phases one and two. As you notice and name your feelings while breathing deeply to support yourself in that process, remember to be respectful of your emotions. You have the right to feel what you feel. There is no need to justify your feelings. They simply are what they are. Validate your feelings by reminding yourself that whatever you feel is understandable, acceptable, and quite natural.

The fourth phase flows from the first three. It is taking full responsibility for what you feel. Your feelings belong to you, not to someone else. No one else makes you feel what you feel. Nor do you have to be the victim of your emotions. You are making friends with your feelings so they serve you rather than frighten or defeat you. [i]

The fifth phase is choosing how you will express your feelings. You may want to talk or even shout them out when you are alone and can say whatever you want to say without being concerned about harming someone else. You might choose to write about what you feel in your journal or in a letter that you may or may not send to someone else. Once you express your emotions privately, you then can decide if and when you want to talk with other people about how you feel. Telling someone you trust about your feelings is helpful. Ask that person to listen and mirror what you say. Honestly confessing your feelings is like chewing what you eat. It allows you to fully digest what you feel.

Another great way to digest your feelings is by using a process called the Emotional Freedom Technique. This involves using the index and middle fingers of one hand to gently tap various acupressure points on your body while making a statement related to the feelings you are facing. Formulate a statement like, “Even though I feel angry and confused, I deeply love and accept myself.” Or “Even though I am sad and lonely right now, I know I am safe and OK.”

Once you have your descriptive statement, tap continuously on what is called the karate chop point – about two inches below where your little finger joins your hand and on the outside edge of your hand - while saying your statement aloud three times. Then use a shorter phrase to remind you of the subject of your tapping as you continue your treatment. While saying aloud, “feeling angry and confused” or “feeling sad and lonely” as your reminder, tap about seven times on each of these points in sequence: the inside edge of your eyebrow; the bone you feel outside and beside your eye, the bone you feel beneath your eye, the middle of the area between your nose and your lip; the middle of the area between the bottom of your lip and your chin; a soft spot about two inches beneath your collar bone and just away from the center of your body; a spot under your arm about where the middle of a bra strap would be; and back again to the karate chop point where you started. Then circle your wrist with your other hand and say, “peace.”

If necessary, repeat the process, modifying your statement by saying, “Even though I still feel angry and confused, I deeply love and accept myself.” Or, “Even though I still feel sad and lonely, I know I am safe and OK.” Then use a reminder phrase like “remaining anger and confusion” or “remaining sadness and loneliness” while tapping the points described above.

For a full description of the basic recipe for using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), go to www.emotionalfreedomtechnique.com. Sometimes it is necessary to tap for layers of emotion that link back into painful experiences from the past. There are also shortcuts and more extended versions of tapping that may be useful to you.

The object of all these processes is ultimately to let go of your feelings once you have acknowledged, validated, and digested them. You don’t need to hang onto your feelings to punish yourself or anyone else. You do need to allow your emotions to teach you the important life lessons that are inherent in your experiences. Doing so, you free yourself to move on to whatever is your next in your life.

As you practice the emotional digestion process, you will encounter two categories of feelings. The first includes feelings that arise spontaneously in response to life events that profoundly affect you and are beyond your personal control. The events of September 11 are an example of this kind of emotional challenge. Other examples include major life changes, losses, illnesses, and other people’s behavior. Feelings also arise spontaneously when we have major accomplishments, joys, and successes. All these experiences stir deep spontaneous feelings within us – some painful and some pleasurable.

The second category of feelings includes emotions that arise within us in response to how we think about and interpret what we experience. We create these feelings through the thoughts we think and the meanings we make of what happens in our lives. When we tell ourselves frightening, negative, judgmental, shaming, and anxiety producing stories about what happens to us, we feel scared, depressed, anxious, and guilty. When we acknowledge our anger and sadness about events that are beyond our control while also telling ourselves that we’ll cope, we’ll survive, we’ll find a way to deal with what we have to face, and that eventually we’ll find the gifts hidden deep within even the most awful circumstances, we soothe ourselves. In response to such healing messages and interpretations, we feel hope, confidence, inner peace, and genuine power.

Again September 11 provides instructive examples. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, there was a great deal on television and radio that simply addressed what was happening and the terrible shock and grief the whole world shared. As days passed, the coverage shifted to more and more analysis of what happened and coverage of the war that ensued. Much of that was useful and helpful in coping with the readjustment of our thinking that all of us faced. At the same time there was a decided focus on the most negative, frightening aspects of the experience at hand with much less attention focused on the miracles of love and healing that also happened that day. Certainly the heroism of the rescue workers was applauded, patriotism was ignited, generosity was triggered, and pride was felt as we coped with our devastation. But we didn’t hear much about how many people escaped from the buildings, how many happened to be delayed or prevented from being there on the day the terrorists struck, the spiritual awakenings that occurred as a result of that awful day, or the renaissance of spirit that might emerge in New York and Washington as it did in Oklahoma City after April 19.

All of us have strong feelings about the terrible events we’ve witnessed in recent years. We grieve. We are shocked and afraid. We hurt. We are angry. We are proud of our country and our heritage. We celebrate the courage of those who rescue, those who cope, and those who fight and defend. These are our pure emotional responses to the shock of events we did not anticipate and could not control or escape.

We also must be concerned about the second category of feelings we have about these events. How we decide to think about and interpret those terrible experiences also determines our emotional state. Certainly we must be aware of how much we choose to allow the news media to control our minds and determine our feelings. We can make conscious choices to think in encouraging, healing ways that help us soothe our anxieties while also taking into account the seriousness of the current world situation.

On a smaller scale we face similar challenges every day in our personal lives. How we choose to frame and think about those challenges determines much of how we feel, the energy we have to cope, and the joy we can feel just being alive. The power of our interpretations can’t be over estimated. We make up stories about what things mean, we believe our stories, and then we behave as if they were true. Our own internal newscasts broadcast continuously in our heads and may be just as negative and scary as what we get on the TV at 6:00 and 10:00 PM.

The good news is that we can make conscious choices to monitor what we tell ourselves and change fearful stories to ones that inspire, encourage, and uplift. Our feelings in response to new, loving interpretations will be pleasant ones that support us, enliven us, and energize us for happier loving and living.

If you encounter feelings that just won't clear, look more deeply within yourself. Ask yourself when you felt similar feelings at earlier times in your life. Trace these feelings back through the years being sure to include your adolescent and childhood experiences. You'll find that today's upsets often tap into reservoirs of buried feelings from the past. What you feel now invites you to uncover, face, acknowledge, validate, express appropriately and ultimately release long buried hurt, anger, and grief from your history. Each time you clear old previously denied feelings, you free yourself to enjoy life more fully and be more whole, healthy, and true to yourself today.

[i] You may find my booklet, Make Friends With Your Feelings, a useful resource. It is available through my office, 1-800-345-8477, or my website, www.marthabeveridge.com .

21 Early Warning Signs for Relationships in Distress

2008-04-29T15:14:00.000-05:00

You’ve no doubt read warning signs for physical problems like cancer, strokes, heart attacks, and possible diabetes. There also are plenty of radio and television programs as well as magazine and internet articles that alert us to indications of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, not to mention possible problems with drugs, foods, cars, the air we breathe, and the addictions we create.

Despite the warnings we receive, it can be difficult to heed them, especially when doing so may mean facing major challenges and making changes in habits and life styles that though painful, are old, comfortable and familiar. We become accustomed to the ruts we create for ourselves as we live our lives day to day. It seems easier to rock along with the way things are than to risk shaking things up by waking up to problems we don’t really know how to face.

I present the 21 warning signs that follow with awareness that you’ve probably already heard enough warnings to last you for a lifetime. If you are brave enough to keep reading, you may recognize come of these patterns in your life. If so, you may be reluctant to consider how powerfully they affect you. Obviously the point in putting these warning signs out is to present a sort of wake-up call for marriages and intimate partnerships that are ailing. But just as we may reach over and silence the alarm clock when we don’t want to get up to face a new day, you may want to tune out concerns you feel when you read them.

Needless to say, tuning out can be costly. Everyday in my office I talk with couples who say, “I wish we had done this years ago before we did so much damage to our relationship.” While there is still plenty of hope for healing marriages, even those in severe crisis, it certainly is easier to address issues before they’ve had years to fester.

There is also the further objection that funds are short and you may not see how you can afford the cost of marital counseling. I would remind you that divorces are lots more costly, not just financially but also emotionally and physically. Couples coaching and counseling doesn’t have to take forever. Just a few sessions can make a big difference in your marriage. There also are excellent books to read that can help you get started on the path to healing. Check out Getting The Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, Hot Monogamy by Pat Love, and my book, Loving Your Partner Without Losing Yourself.

With all that said, here are my 21 early warning signs for relationships in distress:

You no longer have a 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative interactions between you and your mate.
You hide your true feelings from each other – especially anger, hurt, and disappointment – in order to avoid conflict.
Your unexpressed feelings gradually have become a wall of trivia that creates distance and disconnection between you.
You fight frequently about time, money, and sex without solving anything.
You often resort to the ABC’s of power struggle. You attack, blame, and criticize your partner.
You believe your partner is responsible for what is wrong between you.
You try to control your mate’s behavior.
You have little empathy for your spouse. Instead you are convinced that you are right, and he or she is wrong.
You want to change your partner so you won’t have to change yourself.
You act with your partner as if you are a parent correcting a misbehaving child. Or, you behave with your partner like a child trying to manipulate a controlling parent.
Your sexual relationship is suffering.
You talk more openly with friends and business associates than you do with your mate.
You are flirting with having an affair - or having one.
You are closer to your parents and original family than you are to your mate.
One or both of you is addicted to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, food, work, TV, the computer, or other activities that numb your pain and isolate you from each other.
You and your mate relate to each other through your children rather than directly.
You rarely spend time together as a couple without the children or other couples to distract you from each other.
You fill your time with work or other activities so there is no leisure for relaxation and romance.
There is physical, emotional, and / or sexual abuse in your marriage.
One or both of you refuses to ask for help to heal your marriage.
One or both of you is depressed, physically ill, anxious, overweight, or having lots of physical pain.

If you recognize issues in your relationship, I invite you to bite the bullet and risk saying, “I think we need some help.” I know lots of people think they should know how to solve their problems “on their own.” The trouble is, if they knew how, they would already have managed to make the necessary adjustments. The truth is none of us had much or any real education about relationships and how to understand what they require. We expect to receiving job training, we go to school to become skilled enough to practice various professions, we are endlessly fascinated with coaches who create great football and basketball teams, but somehow we imagine that when it comes to marriage, we’re just born knowing what to do. For most of us, the major model we have for how relationships function is our parents’ marriage. Emulating what we experienced and observed growing up works well for some people, but lots of folks are pretty clear that the last thing they want to do is to recreate the dysfunction they saw in their childhood homes.

We wouldn’t expect a sports team to be great without a lot of expert coaching. We know a football team couldn’t function without regular practice sessions, effective communication during huddles, skilled direction from the sidelines, and great leadership and cooperation among team members. Why expect great relationships without effective coaching and regular practice sessions designed to develop excellent communication, great teamwork, and genuine cooperation? Surely your marriage and family are worth at least as much effort as we expect from a sports team.

It’s fun and greatly relieving to move beyond the inevitable power struggle phase where relationships typically become stuck. Once you and your partner experience the joy of becoming conscious in your loving and relating, you open the door to romance and pleasure far greater than what you felt during your courtship. You become vintage lovers who like fine wine are seasoned and enhanced by jointly mastering the real life challenges of living in loving relationship. It’s a journey. Now is the time to take the first steps. Bon voyage!

Stopping Boundary Violations

2008-03-13T19:52:00.002-05:00

One key expression of love is respect – for yourself, for others, and for God. From a spiritual perspective, all of us are intimately connected since we are part of the magnificent whole of God’s creation. Like leaves, we emerge from a bud on a branch which helps form a limb which joins the trunk and helps shape the whole that is the tree. Some live through an entire spring and summer season. Some fall from the tree earlier than expected. All are of equal importance to the tree, virtually identical in appearance, and destined to live, die, and re-bud again the next budding season. Each is one with the whole of the tree.

It’s hard to imagine leaves fighting with one another, judging, criticizing, or discounting other leaves, imagining that one should save another, or that one is more powerful, important, and beautiful than its neighbors. Unless there is lots more going on than our human eyes and ears can fathom, it seems safe to assume that the leaves on a tree live in harmony and peace, enjoying their relatively brief sojourn for a season in the life of their source.

As human beings with lots more freedom and many more choices available to us, we have bigger challenges to face when it comes to respecting ourselves and others. We learn about love and respect in the families that raise us. Our internal computers are programmed early in life by our experiences with our parents, caretakers, teachers, and society. We develop habits of relating that are remarkably like those of the people who have the strongest influences in our early lives.

We also come to believe that these habits can be difficult to change. Holding that belief, it is easy to rock along assuming that the ways we behave are relatively fixed and unlikely to be altered. We find plenty of excuses for keeping ourselves in the behavioral boxes we inhabit that, though not always comfortable, are at least old, familiar, and automatic.

Perhaps you’ve heard the story told by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves, [1]about a dog who was placed by researchers in a large cage. One half of the floor of the cage was wired so that when the dog stepped into that side of the cage, he received an electrical shock. The dog learned to stay on the safe side of the cage. Time passed. Eventually the researchers rewired the floor of the cage so that now the other side of the cage shocked the dog and the side that previously had been wired was now clear. The dog was confused at first and then learned to stay where he wouldn’t be shocked. Again time passed and he became accustomed to his new situation. Finally the researchers wired the entire floor of the cage. Now the dog was confused and panicked. Soon he gave up, recognizing he had no choice but to submit to random electrical shocks no matter where he was in the cage. He became accustomed to his new circumstances and submitted to them. After another extended period of time, the researchers opened the door of the cage.

What did the dog do? We’d like to think that he ran joyfully out of the cage into the freedom that awaited him in a world where the ground is not wired to shock. But instead, he stayed right where he had become accustomed to being – in the cage. By this time he had learned that no matter what, eventually he ended up being shocked. Quite naturally he believed that his experience would be no different outside the cage. Like so many of us, pain that is familiar and predictable seems safer than venturing out of our invisible cages into new territory where we might find much greater freedom and joy – but we believe will be no different from what we’ve learned to expect.

Learning to stop boundary violating behaviors is like having the courage to step outside the cage and discover new, much more satisfying ways of relating. Rather than scaring others by intruding on them, neglecting them, or freezing them out, we can learn to treat them with the respect they deserve and the respect with which we want to be treated. It is the difference between living in love and being controlled by fear as people who have been violated repeatedly tend to be. Like the dog, they are resigned to suffering as the price they must pay for relating to others. If their lives and relationships are to improve, they must find the courage necessary to step into a much larger world of loving possibilities.

Fear is the energy that propels us into violating other people’s boundaries. It is also our instinctive reaction to feeling violated by others. The fright we feel triggers the most primitive part of our brain into action to protect us and insure our survival. We forget our connection with others. We forget that we are all one with our Divine Source. We feel separate and alone. We imagine that our very survival is at stake as our “old” brain kicks in to make sure we aren’t destroyed by what it perceives as a mortal enemy.

This “reptilian” or “old” brain, as it is called, has only three possible choices. It demands that we fight to protect ourselves or flee from danger or freeze in place – like a deer caught in the headlights.

In the face of this powerful “old” brain directive, we go on automatic pilot and - without thinking - react in one of these three ways. Doing so, we in turn violate the boundaries of the person who has just violated ours. This pours fuel on the conflict erupting between us. Our fears - experienced as anger and hurt - intensify. Before we know it, the stakes escalate and more harm ensues.

But there are other possible choices – ways to stop such emotional violence by keeping fear in check and allowing love to fill the empty places where old pain is stored within us. We can start by reminding ourselves that we are much more than the drama that is unfolding between us and another person. We are much more than the feelings and thoughts that may be racing around inside us. We are the conscious witness that is watching the movie that is currently playing on the screen of our lives.

As this conscious witness we can notice boundary violations and our old brain’s reaction to them. We can’t stop the fearful reaction we feel inside ourselves – the urge to fight, flee, or freeze. But we can watch those reactions and choose not to allow those frightened “old” brain urges to control us. Instead we can engage our more evolved “higher” or “new” brain to soothe us and then help us think about how to respond to the situation at hand rather than be controlled by our “knee-jerk” urge to react.

Here’s a useful sequence for your conscious witness to follow:

Notice boundary violations – whether you violate my boundaries or I violate yours.
Notice your internal, “old” brain reaction – the urge you feel to fight, flee, or freeze.
Engage your higher, “new” brain to soothe yourself and then to think about making a more rational choice rather than allowing your “old” brain to control you.

Following this sequence – notice, soothe, think – you can interrupt boundary violating behavior patterns. Instead of escalating your emotions into greater intensity, you use your head and heart to help you find a loving response rather than a fearful reaction.[2]

Self-soothing is a skill we must develop in order to care for ourselves adequately as we interact with others. It is an art we acquire by cultivating a loving voice within us that assures us of our worth, affirms our capacities to cope with life, and reminds us to take a deep breath and relax in the midst of stress. It comforts us when we are frightened and upset. This loving voice is like a nurturing parent that lives within us. It gives us the life affirming messages we need to help ourselves through difficult experiences and troublesome times in our lives.

We can create or strengthen such a nurturing voice within us by writing down loving, reassuring messages to use when we need soothing. Perhaps you would like to hear comforting words like, “God loves you and all is well. You can handle this. Just take a deep breath and let go. You have nothing to fear. Take this one moment at a time. Right this moment, you’re OK.” Or use the mantra that helps take you into a meditative state – words like “I am, God Breathed,” “Om namah shivaya,” or “Om mani padme hum.”

Post these and other self-nurturing messages on an index card to display on your refrigerator door, your mirror, or in your car where you will see them regularly. Speak your loving messages out loud frequently. Say them silently to yourself. Repeat them many times every day. Make them a part of you. Then call them to mind when you notice that you are tempted to react in fear to what someone else says or does.

When that happens, soothe yourself with your reassuring messages and be aware of centering yourself in love. Take three deep breaths and release them slowly. Ask for help from God. Invite the Holy Spirit to come into your heart. Be still and feel your connection with your Spiritual Source.

Then when you feel peaceful and ready, make a short, simple statement to the other person. Let your message be firm, clear, and not emotional. For example, you might say, “I am calling for time out so both of us can calm down. Then let’s come back together and talk about what we need to understand.” Or, “Please respect that I’m not a child, and I’m not willing to be scolded.” Or, “Let’s back up and start this conversation again. I don’t want to give you a knee-jerk reaction to what you just said.”

If you refuse to be drawn into a fight, a fight will not occur. It takes two to tango. If the other person refuses your request for time out or a new approach, leave the room and disengage. When you are alone, acknowledge your feelings about having your boundaries violated. Accept that it is OK to feel hurt and angry.

You may want to write about what you feel or decide how you want to tell the other person - at a later time - about your feelings. Sometimes simply acknowledging and validating your feelings for yourself are all you need do to release the situation at hand. Other times you may want to dialogue with the other person about what happened. It is your job to decide upon the wisest way to care for yourself. Your goal is to move beyond what happened without ignoring your feelings and needs - and without making a bigger deal out of the situation than it warrants.

If – after acknowledging your feelings and expressing yourself appropriately – you are still angry and upset, look for what the situation at hand stirs up in you from the past. Ask yourself how your boundaries were violated in childhood in ways that were similar to what just happened. When you find a connection to your personal history, write in your journal about the incident you remember and your feelings about it.

Address your anger, your sadness, your fears, what you regret, and finally what you appreciate about that old experience. When you have worked your way through all these layers of emotion, you should feel lots of relief. You’ll probably be ready to let go of your old hurts as well as your more recent ones. If not, keep searching and writing and working through the old wounds buried deep within you. Step by step you’ll bring deeper and deeper healing to the wounded child that lives within you. And you’ll find yourself available to enjoy life more fully in the present.

Boundary violations happen when people are afraid. They are best stopped by the healing energy of love applied to the scary situation at hand. Love is always stronger than fear. It will prevail when all else fails. Like soothing ointment on a painful burn, love sets a healing process in motion. Applied moment by moment, time after time, it brings miracles into situations and events that at first glace feel overwhelming and hopeless.

So when your boundaries are violated remember to notice, soothe, and think in the spirit of love and healing. You’ll give yourself the gift of self-respect as you discover your powerful potential for self-mastery. You’ll give your partner, child, parent, friend, or business associate the gift of keeping your boundaries intact in the face of his or her temporary slip into the clutches of fear. Both of you will grow and gain confidence in the sanity and strength of the relationship you share.

To help insure that you minimize your chances of violating other people’s boundaries, it may help to remember this mantra. “I see myself in you. I have no need or right to see you as a bad guy I need to judge, criticize, or blame. I have no need or right to see you as a victim I need to rescue. I have no need to try to manipulate you into rescuing me. I count. You count. The world we share counts. All is well. I am safe. I am love. I am light. And so are you!

[1] Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (New York: Ballantine Books, 1992) p.244.

[2] In this article I am focusing on self-soothing and clear thinking responses to boundary violations when they occur. In an earlier article I describe boundary violating behavior patterns and how to recognize them. You can review that article on my website: www.lovetips.com/blog. . You will find a more in depth discussion of boundary violations and how to recognize them in my book, Loving Your Partner Without Losing Your Self. There is also an earlier article available on my website about developing non-judging awareness of your inner processes.

Recognizing Boundary Violations

2008-02-10T13:20:00.000-06:00

Healthy boundaries are vital to healthy relationships. They insure that each person in an intimate partnership loves and respects himself and his mate.

Partners with healthy boundaries honor their differences. They realize that they are attracted to each other precisely because they are not two peas in a pod. Each of them is a distinct, unique individual. Each is God’s wonderful creation and is worthy, loveable, and deserving of respect. Their lifetime challenge is to know each other, accept each other, and grow into wholeness together.

Their intimate relationship is the crucible within which they are sure to encounter the healing issues they need to face. These healing issues emerge with a boom when one partner violates the other’s boundaries. When this happens they are catapulted back into the pain they felt as children when they suffered similar discounting and disrespect.

Boundary violations hurt. They cause us to react to protect ourselves from danger. The most primitive part of our brain swings into action when another person violates our body, mind, emotions, or spirit. This “old” brain (a.k.a. the “reptilian” brain) has only three possible choices. It directs us to fight, flee, or freeze in order to ensure our survival.

We cannot fail to react when we feel violated and threatened. But we can learn to notice our reactions. By using our “new” brain (a.k.a. the frontal lobe) to recognize our impulse to fight, flee, or freeze, we can make conscious choices about how we will behave in the face of our instinctive urges. Instead of just knee jerk reacting, we can stop and think about a healthier, more appropriate way to behave. After all, our physical survival usually is not at stake - even though the old brain makes no distinction about the level of threat or hurt we feel. (More on this in my next article)

There are three types of boundary violations. Other people may intrude on us, violating our bodies, our feelings, our thoughts, or our spirits. They may neglect us by ignoring our needs, feelings, thoughts, and desires. Or they may freeze us out, denying our importance and the significance of our relationship with them.

Boundary violations affect us physically, emotionally, mentally, and / or spiritually. It is important to recognize boundary-violating behaviors in order to stop them and relate to our partners, children, friends, parents and colleagues in ways that respect us both.

Intrusive Boundary Violations

Intrusive boundary violations are frightening and feel rejecting. Physically intrusive boundary violations hurt our bodies and are dangerous to our safety and physical survival. They are easy to identify and include obvious actions like hitting, slapping, pinching, and shaking. Unwanted tickling and unwanted touch are physically intrusive. There also are cruel criminal invasions that intentionally inflict bodily harm like cutting, stabbing, choking, twisting arms and legs, striking with a fist, rape, stealing, and destroying physical possessions. Murder is the ultimate physical intrusion.

Emotionally intrusive boundary violations involve using feelings as manipulative tools for attempting to control others. Guilt trips are an obvious example. We also use anger, helplessness, tears, blaming, attacking, and posing as martyrs and victims to try to force others to behave as we want them to do. In addition, emotionally intrusive boundary violations occur when we make assumptions about what other people feel and then believe and act upon what we imagine. Or we tell others what they feel, failing to notice that what we imagine is in them is actually happening within us.

Mentally intrusive boundary violations are attempts to force ideas and beliefs on others without regard for the integrity and value of their thinking and reasoning. They occur when we imagine that what we think is the truth and should be as obvious to others as it is to us. Mind reading is another form of mental intrusion when we pretend we know what others are thinking better than they do.

Overprotective efforts to tell people what they ought to do are invasive as well – unless they have clearly requested our input. Discounting statements like, “You’re stupid, dumb, wrong, or misguided” also are violating and hurtful. Another particularly vicious form of mental intrusion is telling others that they didn’t see what they saw or experience what they experienced. Often such pronouncements are followed by demands that they keep secrets about what happened and protect others at their own expense.

Spiritual boundary violations take place when one person or group condemns the beliefs of another by acting as if only they are authorized to represent God. Spiritual intrusions are grandiose attempts to speak for God implying that anyone who thinks or experiences the Divine differently is misguided or evil. Such intrusions are efforts to control others and enjoin them from thinking, questioning, or openly exploring their spiritual nature.

Neglectful Boundary Violations

Neglect is a failure to do something that is necessary or desirable in an intimate partnership. It is less visible and harder to identify than boundary intrusions are, because it is more difficult to notice what is missing than what is present.

Physical neglect involves not caring for our partners or ourselves properly. This can mean not feeding, eating, sleeping, or resting. It also can mean not caring for our bodies with adequate exercise, nutrition, health care, or personal hygiene. Ignoring sexual needs is neglectful as is not touching, hugging, or giving and receiving physical comfort, warmth, and attention.

Emotional neglect is commonplace in today’s world. Many who are adults now were trained as children to ignore their feelings and discount their importance. They may tell their mates not to feel what they feel or turn away from them when they are in emotional distress. Other examples of emotional neglect include not responding to what a partner says or interrupting her when she speaks. Ignoring what a partner tells us or failing to do what we say we will or will not do also constitute emotional neglect.

Mental neglect happens when one partner refuses to acknowledge the importance or validity of what the other thinks, even though he may disagree with her ideas. Changing the subject when a spouse shares his ideas or thoughts or not responding to what he says are also examples of mental neglect. Making a joke of what a mate reveals and not speaking to her or acknowledging her presence are wounding and violate her dignity. Another form of mental neglect is disagreeing with a partner – no matter what he says or does.

Spiritual neglect is commonplace in our culture. It occurs when we ignore the inner realm of Spirit and focus exclusively on the material world as the only bona fide reality.

Freezing and Avoiding Boundary Violations

Freezing and avoiding behaviors leave people looking tense – as if they have themselves under rigid control. They may be excessively thin and tightly strung. Or they may be obese, inflated by the pressure of the pain they hold inside themselves. They may be uncomfortable with touch and cut off from their sexuality. Often they avoid spending time with their partners, may change plans abruptly, leave unexpectedly and without discussion, or not show up for an appointment.

Emotional freezing and avoiding turn feelings into ice and make it difficult to connect in a genuine way with others. People who put their emotions on ice use addictions to mask their pain. They also resort to compulsive activities like over spending, intense cleaning, and obsessive thinking to cover their anxiety.

Depression marked by excessive sleeping, neglecting necessary life tasks, and procrastinating is also a sign of emotional freezing. People who avoid their feelings tend to change the subject when feelings are expressed. They make jokes to diffuse feelings and fail to respond to messages, letters, requests, or phone calls. Their behavior is an unconscious effort to sidestep potentially emotional encounters with their partners, colleagues, or relatives.

Mental freezing and avoiding are apparent in people who talk non-stop and give others no chance to speak. Their unconscious strategy is to control the airwaves so nothing can be said that might be difficult for them to handle. They are quick to interrupt, change the subject, talk over what others are saying, or allow only “small talk.” They don’t use their intelligence to solve problems. Instead they tend to judge others for what they ignore in themselves.

Spiritual freezing and avoiding are evident in people who lock themselves into constant frantic activity that allows them no space for quiet times of prayer, meditation, and reflection. They tend not to notice their blessings and have trouble expressing love, gratitude, and appreciation to others – especially their partners. Their lives – though they may seem successful in material terms – feel empty and meaningless. Their relationships are stagnant, drained of the vital spiritual energy that would nurture them with peace, joy, and contentment.

Witnessing Boundary Violations

Boundary violations are defensive styles of relating. They hide true feelings. Instead of openly revealing yourself, you attack, withdraw, or deny your experience. You pretend that you feel powerful rather than noticing how vulnerable you feel.

When you violate your partner’s boundaries, you hand your vulnerable feelings off to her. If she takes your behavior at face value, she feels angry, sad, and vulnerable. She can’t respond to your true needs, because she doesn’t know what they are. Instead she is likely to react to feeling hurt by violating your boundaries in return. It doesn’t take long for a raging battle to ensue - or for the two of you to resort to a cold emotional stand off. In the end, both of you feel shaken, sad, and sorry. You’ve wounded each other once more – much as you were wounded when you were kids.

My next article deals with how to stop boundary violating patterns of behavior. For now, start noticing without judging yourself when you are tempted to intrude upon others, neglect them, or freeze them out. Please don’t point out your mate’s mistakes – that would be yet another way to violate his boundaries. Instead concentrate on becoming more conscious of your own choices. Wake-up, pay attention, and start recognizing new options that are yours when you use your consciousness to help you grow.

In last month’s article, I talked about centering yourself in love and inner peace. When you are centered, you are able to consciously witness your inner processes without judging them or allowing them to take you over and control your behavior. The next time you feel violated by others or notice yourself about to react with fight, flee, or freeze behaviors, try recalling this image.

Imagine that you are watching a pendulum that has been disturbed so it swings in a wide arc from one extreme point to the other. Now think of one of those extremes as over-reacting to the boundary violation you’ve experienced. Let the other extreme point represent blocking your feelings or fleeing your pain. Continue watching the pendulum and notice how its movement gradually becomes less pronounced as it slowly moves back to center and becomes still again.

Like the pendulum, you can come back to center through consciously witnessing the extremes within you – the parts of you that want to react at either extreme. Accept them without judgment and remember that you are more than these agitated parts within you. You are the witness observing the pendulum’s swing. You are the consciousness that dwells deep within your being, connected with Divine love, and able to remain centered and true to yourself no matter what the world around you may demand, expect, or try to force you to accept.

Centering Yourself: The Key to Sustaining Healthy Boundaries

2008-01-09T18:49:00.000-06:00

You can handle whatever tough situations you encounter with grace and wisdom. The key to doing so is keeping yourself centered in love and firmly grounded in your space – with your boundaries held securely about you.

Centering and grounding yourself are processes you practice – ideally a number of times everyday. Healthy boundaries flow from your steady center. They embrace the whole of you, define you as distinct from others, and protect you from harm as you interact with others.

Healthy boundaries make intimacy possible. Without them partners can’t connect as two complete people who love and respect each other. Instead they become entangled. They function as if one of them wears a T-shirt that says, “We are one, and I am the one,” while the other’s says, “We are one, and you are the one.”

That kind of thinking comes from the relationship model that was our cultural standard before the women’s movement took hold. In the past thirty years, relationship roles have shifted significantly. Yet many people still are running mental software that dates back to the first half of the twentieth century. Though they may pay lip service to equality of the sexes, old ways of thinking determine much of how they relate to their mates. Especially when they are stressed, they automatically default to their most obsolete but firmly embedded behavioral programming.

When this happens, they violate each other’s boundaries in a variety of hurtful ways. We’ll take a look at how boundary violations happen and what we can do about them in my next article. In this one, we’ll get clear about what boundaries are and how centering and grounding help us sustain them.

Do you remember having a protractor when you were in grade school? Your teacher showed you how to use it to draw a circle. You placed the arm with the pointed end where you wanted the center to be, adjusted the arc of the radius to determine your circle’s size, and then traced it with the little pencil attached to the other arm of the tool. A perfect round emerged on your paper – and you could make others like it again and again.

The core of you is like the expanded center of that circle. The rest of you flows from your center out to the boundaries that define you as unique and distinct from everyone else you meet.

Your boundaries encompass the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions of your being. Your physical boundaries are easy to see. They are defined by your body which obviously is separate from everyone else’s. But there is more to you than meets the eye. Your physical form is not all of you. This is because you are not inside your body. Your body is inside you.

Beyond your physical form a field of energy surrounds you. Your emotional, mental, and spiritual boundaries are like concentric circles of light that extend far beyond your body and radiate all around you. Your energy field reflects what you feel, think, and believe. It moves and vibrates at different rates as your emotions, thoughts, and spiritual experiences vary.

The hurt you feel when your physical boundaries are violated is clear and visible. If someone hits you, you have cuts and bruises. If you fall or suffer other accidental injuries, you bleed. If another person steps on your toes, you feel pain. You instinctively do your best to protect your physical boundaries because your survival depends upon your body remaining healthy and in tact.

When someone violates your mental, emotional, and spiritual boundaries, you feel hurt, angry, confused, misunderstood, and discounted. Emotional, mental, and spiritual wounds are very real, but they are not clearly visible. You may try to hide them from others and sometimes even from yourself. Protecting your emotional, mental, and spiritual boundaries is just as important to your well being as protecting your physical boundaries.

Healthy boundaries allow you to relate in loving ways with others without intruding upon them or being intruded upon, without neglecting them or being neglected, without freezing them out or being frozen out. Ideally your boundaries are both firm and flexible. You can expand or contract them as you deal with different people and different kinds of relationships.

You can best establish and sustain healthy boundaries by being centered in the loving core of your Self. Being centered is like firmly planting the point of your protractor in the heart of you and expanding the love you feel there – then drawing a beautiful circle of light that radiates from your center and surrounds you as you interact with others.

A long time ago, I asked one of my wisest teachers, “What is the most important thing people need to learn to live life well?” Her answer was simple. “Teach them to center themselves.”

Since that exchange, I’ve shared centering experiences with lots of others over the years. Like most things that are really valuable, centering is basically a simple process. And it is one that most of us intuitively recognize and easily embrace.

One way to center yourself is by putting your hand over your heart in the center of your chest. As you press your hand gently against your chest, take three deep breaths and slowly release them. You can say to yourself, “I give thanks that I am centered in love,” or “Come Loving Spirit and fill me.” Ron Roth suggests saying, “I am,” as you inhale and “God breathed” as you exhale.

Let your face relax and soften. Feel light flowing throughout your body and all around you. Imagine that strong roots are growing from your feet, nourishing you, grounding you, and anchoring you to the center of the earth. Then rest in that peaceful place with your eyes open or closed for as long as you like – a few moments while waiting for a traffic light to change or several minutes in the midst of a busy day or a stressful situation.

The more you practice centering at odd times, the more naturally it will come to you when you find yourself feeling frightened, anxious, defensive, confused, discounted, or overwhelmed. When you center yourself, you automatically set your invisible energy boundaries in place. As long as you stay centered – and keep returning to center if you feel yourself slipping into fearful reactivity – your loving presence overrides whatever negativity others send toward you. Centering firmly establishes and sustains the healthy boundaries you need for all the ins and outs, ups and downs of living.

Centering gives you genuine power as you connect with your partner and everyone else. Genuine power is quite different from competitive force. It flows from your place of essential wholeness – a place where you embrace all of yourself and are not afraid of the shadow parts when they show up – in yourself or in others. Genuine power pours forth from an attitude of gratitude and forgiveness rather than dissatisfaction and judgment. It manifests as tender toughness and gentle firmness rather than challenging confrontation.

The Love of God that is the core of your being is always stronger than fear and negativity. Centering yourself – moment by moment – gives you the clarity and genuine power you need to face whatever challenges are before you. Centering establishes and protects your boundaries and makes intimacy possible. Centering yourself in Love gives you miraculous moments of healing – again and again – miracles that are yours right now in each instant of your opening to receive them. Try it out! Being centered is your natural, God given, healthy and most satisfying way of being. And it is yours – simply for the allowing.

Mastering Relationship Basics, Part 3: Growing Beyond Self-Absorption

2007-10-09T12:23:00.000-05:00

"He can’t see past the nose on his face!” That’s an old expression I remember hearing a lot as a child. I wasn’t sure what it meant then. Now I know. It refers to a person who is so absorbed in himself that he can’t relate well to others. He doesn’t experience them as separate and distinct from him. And he doesn’t see them clearly.

A self-absorbed person has trouble putting himself in someone else’s shoes and imagining how things look and feel from their point of view. He forgets that people have minds of their own and aren’t content simply agreeing with or catering to him.

Small children are naturally self-absorbed. Gradually they grow into awareness of other people and their differing needs and feelings – if their caretakers teach them that the world does not revolve around them exclusively. Children learn these important lessons most powerfully from parents who respect each other and treat their little ones with respect as well. When siblings are born, when limits are set, when consequences are invoked, when personal boundaries are respected, when mom and dad mirror for them and model good listening, they learn that they are important and that other people must be taken into account as well. They experience others as separate from them and valuable, just as they are.

Sadly, many parents don’t manage to teach these lessons effectively, because they haven’t learned them yet. Their children grow up physically, but they don’t mature emotionally. When they enter romantic relationships, they have trouble committing to a partner. Once they manage to do so, their wounding and growth deficits emerge with startling clarity in what is called the power struggle stage of relating.

Power struggles happen when partners don’t feel empathy for each other. Rather than seeking to understand their differences, they try to erase them. Each wants to be right at the other’s expense. They fight over who is the good guy and who is the problem person. They blame each other for their conflicts so neither has to face her part in their difficulties. They are intent upon trying to change and control each other. When they try to talk, they end up fighting. Each reacts to what the other says. Neither listens carefully. Neither speaks respectfully. Each is absorbed in her own limited view of what she is convinced is the only correct view of the situation they share.

Breaking out of power struggles demands that partners learn how to relate to each other as considerate peers and allies rather than critical parents or frustrated children. The first steps necessary to making this transition are learning to listen and speak to each other with consciousness, love, and respect.

My previous two newsletter articles focus on how to develop these essential listening and sharing skills. Practicing them helps mates grow beyond their power struggles. As they master these basics, they become less absorbed in themselves and more able to experience genuine empathy for each other.

Now I want to tell you about two additional steps you can add to the mirroring process to help you and your partner further enhance your acceptance of each other. Each of you can learn to validate what the other says and to sense what she feels as she speaks.

After mirroring your partner’s words to ensure that you understand her correctly, you invite her to continue sharing with you until she tells you she is finished for now. You then summarize all that you have heard from her. Once she indicates that you have gotten her message accurately, you respond by validating what she has told you. You say something like, “What you say makes sense to me,” or “I can understand what you are telling me.” You also may elaborate on why and how your partner’s perspective makes sense to you.

Validating her point of view does not mean that you agree or disagree with what she says. It is simply a way of saying that you can put yourself in her shoes and see how her point of view is valid for her and makes sense from her perspective.

Each of us experiences the same situation quite differently. A reporter interviewing three witnesses to the same event would hear three distinct stories. Each person interviewed would describe what happened in her own unique way. The three accounts would have elements in common, but there also would be substantial differences. And each person would be telling the truth from his unique perspective. What is important to one may not be what caught the interest or stirred feelings in the others. Listening to all three accounts would give our reporter a more complete picture of what happened than any one person could convey by themselves.

I’m reminded of the story of a group of blindfolded monks who were led to an elephant and asked to feel what was before them. They were to describe what they perceived through touching this large unidentified object and then state what they thought they were examining. One monk was stationed in front of the elephant and was convinced that he was feeling a large hose. Another felt one of the elephant’s legs and thought it was a tree trunk. Yet another felt the elephant’s tail and assumed it was a stick of some sort. Each could make a reasonable argument about what he perceived and imagined. But none could grasp the whole picture from the small segment he could feel.

In a similar way, none of us alone is likely to grasp the full import and significance of what we see and experience. Nor are we likely to find the most elegant solutions to challenges and problems we encounter when we rely exclusively on one opinion or perspective. It behooves us to express our point of view and be heard and understood by others we trust. It also is vital that we listen to their points of view and do our best to understand how they look at the situation being considered. When we truly accept the validity of a variety of opinions and perspectives, we gain a more complete picture of the whole of the issue before us. With open minds and enhanced understanding of more than one perception, more evolved synergistic possibilities emerge that are likely to take us to higher levels of functioning.

Validating your partner’s experience tells him that you respect him and honor his perspective – that you are open to hearing what he senses about the part of the elephant he is touching. You hear him, you understand what he has said, and he makes sense to you. You are mature and secure enough to be open to how he sees things - even when he sees them quite differently than you do. You know that what he tells you is about him. It is what is true for him. It is not an attack on you, your beliefs, or your point of view. It is simply your mate revealing himself to you. You are honored that he trusts you enough to let you know what he thinks and feels.
The habit of validating your partner’s perspective helps you curb any tendencies you may have to want to react defensively to what you hear. It also assists you in learning not to take personally what he shares with you. What any person says is much more about him than it is about anyone else. There is an old saying that when I point one finger at you, three fingers are pointing back at me.

That’s because all of us project – we see denied parts of ourselves in others and then are tempted to condemn them for what we are blind to within us. Remember that - when you find yourself feeling defensive or offended while listening to your mate. What you are hearing is about him or her. There may be truth in it for you to consider as well. But the major truth is that your partner is telling you about what is within him that he doesn’t want to notice but sees magnified when he judges you.

When you mirror what he tells you and later validate what you have heard, you keep your boundaries in tact, contain any reactivity you feel, and help him hear himself more accurately so he can more fully own what he is saying and its relevance to his life. By not reacting defensively, you demonstrate the maturity and self-control you are capable of practicing. He feels better because you have heard him accurately, accepted what he said, and declined to escalate your conversation into a horn-locking power struggle. You feel better because you have proactively chosen not to be tempted into a destructive, hurtful fight.

While listening to your partner, you are not just tuned into his words and what they mean. Your feeling antennae also are out. You do your best to sense his emotional state as he speaks to you. After your validating statement, you add, “Given all that, I imagine you might be feeling ……(angry, sad, confused, excited, happy, relieved, discounted, pleased, disappointed, hurt…etc.) Feelings are described by one word. Thoughts require more than one word to convey. Your partner may nod his head to agree with the emotion you suggest. Or he may disagree and tell you what he is feeling instead.

You are expressing empathy for your mate. Not only are you listening to him, you are tuning into his emotional experience as well. At the same time, you respect that he is the expert on what he feels. If he corrects the feeling you suggest, you accept what he tells you and mirror the feeling he identifies. “So it’s not that you are feeling confused as I suggested, you are really very angry about this.”

Validating your partner and expressing empathy for what he may feel lets him know that you really care about him. You are willing to make the effort required to honor him in these ways. You are able to put yourself in his place and feel empathy for his experiences – even when they are not the same as your own.

Adding these skills to your relationship repertoire helps you mature into a more complete and interesting human being. Using them announces that you are genuinely concerned about others – and that you can set aside your reactions long enough to warmly and genuinely connect with them. You appreciate other people. You are wise enough to accept differences rather than be frightened and judgmental about them. You are a great friend and partner.

Self-absorbed people are prone to depression. They are caught up in their own pain and are afraid to get close to others. They weren’t treated with respect during their growing up years. They may have been abused, neglected, or overindulged.

As adults they are caught up in inner turmoil and in efforts to numb their pain. Rather than reaching out to others and talking about what troubles or interests them, they keep their own counsel and shut others out. Or they talk a lot with little regard for whether or not their listeners are really interested in all they have to say. Then they fail to allow room for others to respond or tell their own stories. Either way they miss out on the joy of human connection.
They also miss out on the pleasure of being really involved in the world. They have trouble finding useful ways of serving others. By not growing beyond their small self-centered worlds, they doom themselves to half-hearted living – until they decide it’s time to heal and grow.

The miracle is that you and your partner are perfectly suited to help each other evolve beyond the pain of remaining absorbed in yourselves. By mastering these first three relationship basics you can create the healing growth each of you needs.

The best remedy for childhood wounds is treating and being treated with love and respect within the context of your marriage. As you and your partner grow, the family you create together becomes one in which your children can learn lessons your parents may not have been adequately equipped to teach.

Mastering Relationship Basics, Part 2: Revealing Yourself to Your Partner

2007-09-19T16:41:00.000-05:00

Revealing yourself to your partner is the second vital dimension of intimate connection. In order to reveal yourself, you need to know and trust yourself. You also need to trust that your mate will hear you respectfully and honor what you say with his attention and consideration. Of course the reverse is true also. Your partner will reveal himself to you if he knows he can count on your open-hearted listening and respect for what he shares.

Honoring each other with such genuine listening and sharing creates much more than just good communication. It creates communion between the two of you – a communion that transcends your physical separateness and allows you to experience that you are One in Spirit.

Conscious intentional listening and mirroring create a context within which your mate can open up to you and to himself. When he reciprocates by listening and mirroring for you, you feel safe enough to reveal your inner self to him. By hearing and reflecting your words, he helps you hear yourself better. As you hear yourself mirrored, you discover more and more about what you want to express.

When I was working toward my certification as an Imago Relationship Therapist, I was part of a training group of eight other therapists. During our sessions, each of us would be mirrored continuously for an hour or more by other group members. I made some surprising discoveries about myself during my times of being so carefully heard. Often I would start with nothing of particular importance in mind to say. Yet as I spoke and was mirrored, I felt doors of awareness opening inside me. With each inner opening, I learned more about what I truly felt, thought, and needed to express. By the time I came to the end of my turn to speak, I knew myself better. I also experienced being genuinely loved and accepted by the others in my group. This was wonderfully healing and empowering.

You and your mate can give each other similar gifts of healing and empowerment by mastering the complementary arts of open-hearted listening and genuine self-revelation. By genuine self-revelation I mean speaking to your partner about what is true for you – what you think, what you feel, what you need, what you believe, what you dream of doing, what your goals are, what your fears are, what you’ve experienced, what amuses you, what challenges you, what upsets you, what is beautiful to you, what bothers you. This is not our usual mode for sharing. It demands putting down our self-protective barriers and allowing ourselves to become truly visible to our partner.

Here are some guidelines for healthy self-revelation:

-- When you reveal yourself to your mate, you don’t hide behind walls built of attack, blame, and criticism. Attacking, blaming, and criticizing your partner are what I call the ABC’s of power struggle. They harm both speaker and listener. They change nothing. They create rage, resistance, and rebellion. They position you and your partner as competitors fighting over who is the good guy and who is the one with the problem. No one wins.

--You speak about yourself using the pronoun “I” rather than “we.” While you and your partner are a “we” in relation to the rest of the world, you are two individuals when you relate to each other. Neither of you can speak for the other without assuming that you know that what is true for you is also true for her. That’s a big assumption that is usually risky. It is all too easy to hide yourself behind speaking about “we.” When you do so, you don’t take full responsibility for what you say.

--You speak to your partner as your peer. You do not assume the role of parent, teacher, or other authority figure implying that you are your mate’s superior. Your job is not to correct, discipline, or reform him. Your agenda is to let him know you better so he can understand and love you more fully.

--You pause after two or three sentences so your mate can mirror what you have said. You realize that it is almost impossible for her to accurately reflect more than two or three sentences at a time. As you speak, you are tuned into her needs as the receiver of your words. You don’t overwhelm her with your verbiage.

--You don’t go on and on repeating the same point as if your mate is a slow learner. You are aware of your partner as you speak. You have a sense about when your partner has gotten what you say and needs a turn to respond to you.

--If you want to share something that is very important to you, you ask your partner if he is willing to listen and mirror for you for an extended period of time. You allow your mate to choose a time when he can be fully available to hear you. You respect each other’s time and energy by making an appointment for dialogue.

--You avoid hiding yourself behind the phrase, “you know.” “You know” implies that your mate is privy to your inner experience and should know what you mean without your having to make the effort required to tell her.

--You don’t attempt to manipulate your partner with your feelings or use guilt trips to get him to agree to what you want. When you share your feelings, you give him information about you. You don’t imply that he is responsible for what you feel or that he should do something to make you feel differently. You take full responsibility for your emotions. You express them so you can release them and return to emotional balance within yourself.

--You keep your sense of humor alive and well as you share. You avoid taking yourself too seriously and can laugh at yourself when humor is appropriate.

--You know you are not alone in what you experience. You realize that many others have had similar experiences in life. Many others have felt as you do. They managed to survive and so can you.

--You also know that life is a flow. What may seem overwhelming now will soon pass. Like we often say about the weather in Oklahoma, if you don’t like it, just wait a few minutes and it will change.

--You are relaxed about what you want to say. You aren’t afraid of your partner’s response to you. You trust that you can handle a less than optimal reaction from him if that should occur. You know your Spiritual resources support you even when your human companions are temporarily unable to give you their best.

--You make sure there is a balance in your sharing with your partner. You take turns speaking and listening so that neither of you consistently dominates the air waves.

--You thank your partner for listening to you with love and respect. You know that expressing gratitude and appreciation for your mate nurtures both of you and your partnership.

Letting your partner know you is a gift you give your relationship. Seeking to know and understand her is equally important to the sacred connection you share. Both demand that you open your heart and allow yourself to be vulnerable. As speaker, you take down your defenses and let yourself be emotionally naked. As listener, you contain your defensive reactions and let your mate be safe in her nakedness with you. You refrain from ridiculing her, cutting her off, or putting her down for being honest with you.

All this sounds much easier than it is to do. Both sides of the communications equation require courage, commitment, and emotional maturity. Though you will make plenty of mistakes as you practice these principles for listening and sharing, you will grow each time you succeed in making the effort. As you grow, you create a healing context for your partner. As she thrives in the love you give, she is empowered to return the same healing Spirit to you.

In your open-hearted giving and receiving, the two of you create miracles of growth for yourselves and for everyone else whose lives you touch. Your children will thrive living in the warmth of the home you share, knowing they can speak honestly and be heard respectfully too.

Mastering Relationship Basics

2007-08-11T16:57:00.000-05:00

Basic #1: Open-hearted Listening

Chances are you think you’re a good listener. Most of us do. That assumption sticks with us until we discover – usually by participating in an exercise designed to develop listening abilities – that real listening just doesn’t come naturally. It is a demanding skill.

What I call open-hearted listening is even more than a skill. It is way of being in genuine connection with another human being.

The listening I’m talking about demands respect for the speaker as a person separate from you. Tuning into him, you let him know that his thoughts, needs, and ideas are important to you – so important that you are willing to set aside your reactions – even the urges you feel to interrupt, advise, or disagree.

Open-hearted listening is a discipline that requires full attention. You are conscious of what you hear as well as aware of your own inner responses as you listen. You notice when your mind wants to wander off to focus on your own concerns. You notice when you’re hearing only part of what the speaker is saying. You notice when you’re tuning out completely. You notice when you stop listening and start planning what you want to say when it is your turn to speak.

Over the years that I’ve taught people this vital skill, I’ve heard lots of surprised comments from both men and women who were pretty sure they already were great listeners. After attempting to carefully hear another person and then accurately repeat what she said, they discovered that this is not a simple task.

“I was so absorbed in my own thoughts that I couldn’t focus on what she was saying,” one husband reported.

“I realized I was jumping to lots of conclusions about what he was telling me. I made it about me and then I wasn’t really listening to him at all,” his wife noticed when it was her turn to listen and mirror.

“I found myself becoming very defensive. That made it hard to keep listening. I wanted to stop her – to interrupt her and tell her she was wrong about what she was saying,” another man noted.

“I felt criticized by what she was saying. So I got angry. Then I wanted to jump in so I could get my turn to be critical of her,” was another man’s comment.

I assured them that their experiences were not unusual. Learning to listen is challenging business. It forces us to grow into greater awareness of others. It teaches us to respect the boundaries that define us as separate and distinct human beings. It makes us realize that there is not just one correct and definite perspective on what happens in our lives.

There are as many honest points of view as there are honest people expressing them. No one of us has the right way of seeing and describing the experiences we share.

I often remind couples that if a reporter entered the room to interview each of us about what had transpired during our therapy session, he would hear three different stories. Though these stories would have elements in common, they would not be identical. Probably they would be quite different, and each of us would be telling the truth.

Our truth is filtered through our own unique perceptive systems. What I describe is about me and how I process what I see. What others say is about them and reveals what attracts their attention. There is not one absolutely correct way of reporting what we experience.

It is hard to listen to and honor another person when what he describes differs from our take on the same or a similar subject. Hearing an opinion that varies from our own can hook us into wanting to set the speaker straight rather than continuing to listen. If we jump in to correct him, we discount his point of view. We also imply that there is only one correct perspective and that is our own.

Listening with an open heart requires that we set our reactions aside and take ourselves off center stage. Only then can we be truly present to hear another person and honor what he tells us.

Open-hearted listening is a powerful path to emotional growth and spiritual development. Practicing it we let go of trying to control what others think and feel and do. We are open to what emerges as we allow them the space they need to express themselves fully - without our judging or criticizing them for what they reveal. We are vulnerable to being affected by their thoughts, needs, and feelings. These are not small tasks.

Listening with an open heart is a discipline much like the discipline required for daily meditation. We have to calm our minds, slow down our breathing, relax into the present moment, and stay still. In meditation we listen quietly for God to speak to us. In listening to another person, we give quiet attention too. Sometimes what we hear is a message we need to heed. Often God speaks to us through the people we know and love.

Yet we must remember that there is no need to take personally everything we hear. What a mate, a child, a parent, a friend, or a co-worker says to us is first and foremost about the one who speaks. It also may be useful input we need to consider. The challenge is in listening with discernment and an attitude of loving acceptance for both of us.

Loving you, I accept what you say with respect and sensitivity. Loving me, I hear you without letting myself be harmed by your words. I take in what I need to take to heart. I accept the rest, appreciate your honesty, and release what is not mine to carry.

We grow into the capacity to listen with an open heart by learning to mirror what we hear. Mirroring is simply repeating exactly what the person speaking tells you. It helps to ask the speaker to pause after a couple of sentences so you can reflect his words accurately. Then invite him to continue by saying something like, “Is there more?” or “Tell me more!” Let him continue to speak and be mirrored until his answer to your invitation to continue is, “That’s all for now.” Then summarize the whole message you’ve received.

This may seem cumbersome and exceedingly difficult when you first practice it. Part of you will resist. Some people refuse to make the effort. Usually those who protest vigorously have the most to gain by doing it. When mirroring doesn’t come naturally - and you don’t want to do it - you can be sure it is a growth step you need to master. The benefits to you as listener are enormous if you practice with a sincere desire to be more honoring of the people who are important to you. You grow every time you manage to contain the temptation to react to what you hear.

Obviously mirroring all the time would be a burdensome and exhausting. What’s vital is learning when it is important to mirror. The more you practice, the more astute you will become about choosing when to reflect back to a speaker what you hear her say. Gradually you will find that you know when to mirror, and you do so quite spontaneously.

When you mirror another person, you give her a healing gift. All of us need mirroring when we are children. As infants our parents probably mirrored us a lot – smiling back at us when we smiled, laughing when we laughed, imitating the sounds we first were able to make. As we got older and were more challenging to handle, they may have stopped giving us this gift of reflection. Yet we continued to need mirroring to help us feel visible and important. As adults, the child within us still craves mirroring. When we receive it – especially from our mates – we heal and grow.

By mirroring our children, we help them discover who they are. We let them know we see them and realize that they are separate from us. We give them the gift of honor and respect. They thrive – knowing they can talk honestly with us without being afraid of being overruled, discounted, lectured, or rejected.

Teenagers are thirsty for mirroring from the adults they love. They need to be heard and respected – even when you don’t agree with what they say - or are horrified by what they think they want to do. Granted it may be a huge challenge to mirror something like “I want to dye my hair purple.” But when your teenage daughter hears you calmly reflect, “So you want to dye your hair purple. Tell me more!” she may well go on to tell you about other more important issues that concern her. Chances are dying her hair purple will be less urgent by tomorrow – especially since you didn’t react like a freaked out parent intent on controlling her every choice.

From the Bible to Steven Covey we are told to seek first to understand before trying to be understood. Wisdom that’s both that ancient and that up to date is worth heeding. Try it. Practice with you mate. Experiment with it at work. Difficult situations will melt away in a moment when you give the gift of listening with your open heart. It’s the first and most basic skill for nurturing relationships that flourish.

The Second Secret to Flourishing Relationships

2007-07-16T16:20:00.000-05:00

You wouldn’t think of flying in an airplane with a pilot who had no training. Making a marriage or intimate relationship fly is a far more complex task. Yet most of us have almost no formal preparation.

Partners simply climb into the cockpit and take off, hoping not to crash but not really knowing how to avoid a possible disaster. Once they are airborne, they are reluctant to ask for help. That’s not really surprising since our culture nurtures the belief that we ought to be able to figure out how to make relationships work on our own.

This attitude is tragically short sighted. Seeking help (both spiritual and psychological), taking advantage of available resources, and educating yourself are signs of self-esteem self-confidence and intelligence. Actively taking these steps is essential to growing beyond the difficult places you and your mate encounter as your relationship evolves. That’s why relationship education is one dimension of the second secret to developing your green thumb with intimate partnerships.

There are lots of excellent books and tapes available to assist you in beginning your ongoing education for relationship success. You’ll find a suggested resource list at the end of this article. While tools like these are extremely helpful and important, there is no substitute for experiencing a healthy relationship with a teacher, Spiritual director, or couples therapist to assist you in more fully nourishing the love you share with your mate.

Think about how reading a book about operating a computer is quite different from having a skilled computer specialist guide you as you learn. Working together at the keyboard, you gain hands on operating experience. Gradually your confidence grows. Soon you are proficient and effective on your own because you have practiced the skills you need with a guide present to coach and assist you in the process. In a similar way, a relationship teacher serves as a coach and guide as she helps you practice the skills that are most important to develop. In next month’s newsletter, I’ll describe some of those basic partnership skills.

But educating yourself about what works and doesn’t work in an intimate partnership is only one aspect of the challenge. If these important skills are to take hold and take root in your marriage, they need to be planted in the fertile soil of a loving, safe context you and your partner create. Within such a setting, your relationship skills – when practiced regularly and gradually mastered – can flourish and transform your intimate connection.

Both of you need to develop a deep understanding, acceptance, and love of yourself so you can also understand, accept and genuinely love your partner. In an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding, you create a healthy climate within which love flows freely without walls of resistance and fear blocking its passage. This loving, nurturing context has three facets: your relationship with God, your relationship with yourself, and your relationship with your partner.

Your outer relationships directly reflect your relationship with yourself and with God. If your heart is closed to God’s love, you aren’t able to love yourself fully or openly extend your love to others. When your heart opens to receive God’s love, love for yourself and for others flourishes in the peace of knowing your shared Divine Source. Because you are open to receive love, you have abundant love to give.

When you tune into the Divine love that is the core of your being, you can feel this love streaming through your heart and from your heart to God. Simultaneously it flows freely from your heart into the heart of your partner and the hearts of others. Living in this loving flow, you experience the Divine in yourself and in your partner as well as everyone else you meet. All your relationships blossom and flourish, nourished as they are by the steady rain of inner peace that passes through you and connects you with others.

Why, you may wonder, would anyone’s heart not be open to God’s love? Is allowing God’s love a function of the intellect? Do you have to make sense of the Universe in order to allow the breath of love to flow freely through you? What blocks this flow when it is blocked?

I can’t answer those questions for you. I can only speak from my own experience. All my life I sought this Divine love, imagining that it was somewhere outside me. I read hundreds of books, worked with Spiritual teachers, went to church, prayed, meditated, and gradually grew and healed many inner hurts. I thought my heart was as open as a heart could possibly be. Truly I made a lot of progress. But I didn’t know what I was missing still, because I could not yet see to the core of what blocked me from feeling God’s love flowing freely within me.

In 2001, I was for the first time in the presence of Dr. Ron Roth, a truly inspired Spiritual teacher. Along with over 200 other Spiritual seekers, I attended a five day intensive workshop on prayer and healing. There I found the key to what kept me unconsciously guarding my heart. I hadn’t realized how I was blocking the steady flow of the Divine love that I craved and didn’t know was at the core of me.

Ron Roth

The key to why I guarded my heart so closely was a curse – words spoken in rage by my mother when she was scared and upset far beyond her capacity to cope with what confronted her. “God will get you for this!” she exclaimed to a terrified seven year old me – a child she had just caught being sexually abused by her father, my mother’s husband. In her fearful state, she blamed me for his behavior. I know she regretted that incident and lived for years carrying deep shame within her. I know she was sorry. I spoke with her about that event before she died. We forgave each other. But I didn’t yet remember the curse. And it was the curse – those devastating and forgotten words - that bound me.

Unconsciously I was afraid of God’s love. Unconsciously I thought God was against me and out to get me. I clung to believing my mother’s words. I wanted her love and approval. Outside my awareness, I obeyed her curse and arranged to “get” myself in a variety of ways that confounded my mind and frustrated my heart.

During that week in Phoenix in Ron’s presence, I remembered the curse. Finally I fully forgave my mother and asked her to forgive me for keeping a wall around me that prevented our ever being really close. I released her, and I released me. And I felt my heart opening and opening. And then still opening some more. God loves me. God is for me, not against me. I love me. I see my life in a new light. I see everyone with eyes of love, no longer clouded by the unconscious terror that kept me closed despite my best efforts to pry open my frightened heart.

It wasn’t a matter of figuring it out or gaining intellectual understanding. It was a matter of being in the presence of a teacher who emanates love. It was also being in the company of many, many others whose hearts are open and free. Saturated in this Holy Spirit of Love, what still needed healing and recognition rose to the surface of me. I cried great buckets of healing tears. I felt the collapse of the tightness inside me that was so old and familiar I didn’t even know it was there. I felt peace and joy that I had never known before.

Since that time, I’ve integrated this healing in my life. I didn’t plan to write about this when I sat at my computer to compose this article. I did pray that the Holy Spirit would guide me. This is what has come.

Yes, I already had learned lots of skills and taught them to countless others. Yes, they worked before and they made a big difference in my relationships and in the relationships of the people I counsel. But now these skills go beyond just working. Now they transform – when I practice them within the context of the sacred trinity of love for God, for myself, and for others.

My prayer is that my experience may touch your heart in whatever way is most nourishing for you. If you’re inspired to expand your relationship education and build your partnership skills, here is a resource list to consider. Read, listen, learn, and practice, remembering always that within the sacred context of Divine love you’ll find the healing magic you seek. It is the Holy Spirit of Love that truly makes you a green thumb relationship gardener.

Resources to consider:

Loving Your Partner Without Losing Your Self by Martha Baldwin Beveridge
Getting The Love You Want by Harville Hendrix
Reclaiming Your Spiritual Power by Ron Roth
Joy’s Way by Brugh Joy
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Angel Therapy by Doreen Virtue
Small Miracles by Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal
How To Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Pat Love and Steven Stosney
Love That Works by Saundra Dickinson

The First Green Thumb Secret to Rewarding Relationships

2007-06-18T16:32:00.000-05:00

Great gardeners have an intuitive sense about how to nurture what they plant. Like a gardener with a green thumb, you, too, have strong intuitions. The question is whether or not you notice them -- and if and when you do -- whether or not you let them guide you.

An intuition is a knowing that goes beyond reason and logic. It is a gift from your heart and Soul – a kind of radar that signals and guides you, if your receiver is on and you are tuned into what you sense.

Your intuitive radar was operating at full blast when you first felt deeply attracted to your partner. Or it will be when next you encounter someone who sets your inner bells chiming. What you experience on occasions like these is chemistry powerful enough to insure that you get to know the person whose presence sets your senses soaring. You simply “know” that this is someone who is special for you.

Similar knowings, though less intense, happen frequently. Sometimes you feel a gentle prompting. Other times you have much stronger urges. Noticing what you sense awakens your consciousness so you can honor your intuitions. Waking-up your heart-centered consciousness is the first secret to developing a green thumb with relationships.

Heart-centered consciousness transforms you and your relationships. It’s as simple to access as taking three deep breaths, closing your eyes for a few moments, and putting your hand over your heart chakra in the center of your chest. As you breathe, relax, and let go of whatever is happening around you, you feel calm and peace coming over you. In this peaceful place, you are able to see yourself and others from a loving rather than fearful point of view. You also are open to intuitive knowing and spiritual guidance.

Heart-centered consciousness is like a power switch that turns on the light within you and allows you to connect with your inner resources. Centering yourself in the loving energy of your heart flips on the light that is your essence. It dispels whatever darkness might be threatening you, and connects you with your higher resources.

These resources include your inner observer, a loving, non-judging witness who watches over you. You also access your intuitive Soul level guidance system which you might think of as your spirit guides. They are always present and available, but they serve you best when your inner light is on and you are aware of their presence and tuned into their observations and insight. Your inner observer simply notices your choices without judging you for what you choose, resisting your choices, or trying to change them. Your spirit guides jog your memory, give you flashes of insight, intuition, and knowing, and offer guidance and direction when you are open to their wisdom and perspective.

Your Inner Observer

Centering yourself is like activating the sound system in your car. The system is always present and available, but you don’t hear it until you push the button that turns it on. Once you do, you have lots of listening choices. There are a multitude of radio stations as well as your CD player. Sometimes you choose popular music or jazz. On other occasions you seek different styles. You may be in the mood for talk programming and search until you find a conversation that intrigues, enrages, or inspires you. Or classical music may be exactly right for soothing your spirits. What you select affects you. If you like what you hear, you’ll probably keep listening. If you don’t, you can change the station, give yourself the choice of peaceful silence, or keep listening and escalate your angst.

Your inner observer is like a quiet companion on a long car ride. Its presence and observations empower you to recognize your choices and their effects– on yourself and on other people. Your inner observer helps you see how, moment by moment, you decide what to notice, what to listen to, and what not to register. It shows you how you create what you think and the interpretations you make about yourself, your experiences, and other people. It notices how your thoughts and interpretations determine what you feel and how you behave. It gives you clear, play by play awareness of you.

Your inner observer allows you to notice the rich variety of possibilities you possess for enjoying life. It sees you tuning into your physical senses, experiencing the joy of smelling flowers, feeling the air that surrounds you, embracing your breathing, really tasting what you eat, and appreciating the soothing comfort of touching someone you love.

It watches as you allow your feelings and make them your ally. Its observations help you recognize how your emotions assist you through difficult times, alert you to dangers and intrusions, fill you with joy, and help you spill tears of release when you must let go of people you love.

Your inner observer helps you become the master of your mind rather than its victim. Gradually you take command of your mind as your inner observer notices how you think and interpret your experiences. It alerts you when you allow fearful thinking to gain a foothold with scary interpretations and predictions about your life and relationships.

Your Spirit Guides

With your loving inner observer as your ally, you also are open to the wisdom of your heart and Soul expressed through your spirit guides. They help you see how, in the long run, overwhelmingly difficult events and challenging experiences can mark significant positive turning points in your life – if you fully embrace them. Your spirit guides help you find the gifts of growth and healing that are yours when you come to grips with the tough times in life.

They teach you that you can ask for help from angels, Spirit guides, and God when you feel lost and frightened. They call your attention to thousands of everyday miracles that assure you of the very real assistance you receive from unseen dimensions of reality that lie beyond the realm of the physical. Gradually you learn to trust the comfort and support that are consistently available for you from this much larger world of Spirit. Your logical mind may protest, clinging to the ego-centered belief that reality consists of only what can be touched, measured, and defined. Heart-centered consciousness knows that what may defy physical logic is nevertheless distinctly real.

A Potent Partnership

With your loving inner observer and your spiritual guides as your partners, you notice how the words you say and the behaviors you choose affect your relationships. You tune in and imagine how other people feel, living or working in connection with you.

You may begin asking yourself important questions. Am I creating closeness and cooperation or distance and competitive advantage? Am I listening and registering what others say or focusing on what I want to say in reaction to them? Do I care about how other people see situations differently from me? Or do I rush in to try to convince them that mine is the only true and correct perspective? Do I recognize how connected I am with other people and with all of life or do I feel isolated, suspicious, and overly cautious? Am I tuned into the energy of love or caught up in the painful contagion of fear? Am I open to my spirit guides? Can I tune into my loving inner observer without judging myself for what it helps me notice?

Judging ourselves and others for the choices we make creates pain or pride – depending upon the negative or positive tone of our judgments. Neither is useful, lasting, or valuable.

Letting go of the persistent temptation to judge what we see heals us and creates miracles in our relationships. Being conscious - without presuming to know what is “right” or “best” for others - allows us to connect with them as our peers and fellow travelers through life. It frees us to love without climbing on and off pedestals that declare some of us momentarily superior.

The next time you find yourself sinking into a mire of ugly thoughts, feelings, and possible behavior, remember to remember that there is something you can do to help yourself and the situation at hand. Close your eyes, breathe, put your hand on your heart, and let go of all but the present moment.

As you get connected with yourself through your heart center and stay there for a few minutes, you’ll notice new choices that are available to you. This will assist you in seeing your situation and other people differently. You may look for what you like and appreciate rather than what you resent and fear. You may realize that you are beginning to feel peaceful and powerful rather than agitated and vulnerable. You’ll be able to see from a new perspective that reminds you that nothing earth shattering is happening here. You can let it go. You can accept “what is.” You can allow words you hear coming from other people to be about them, not you, even if they are blaming, criticizing, or attacking you.

It helps to keep your hand over your heart, as a constant reminder that staying centered is the key to relating to your partner, your children, your parents, or your boss and co-workers. Heart-centered consciousness is your bridge to genuine connection with others from a loving, enlightened place. It overrides fear so that dark energy can’t short circuit your best intentions, dim your inner light, and throw you into primitive fight, flee, or freeze reactivity.

Heart centered consciousness and connection with your inner observer and spirit guides are vital to growing and nurturing your relationship garden. Water it frequently with loving thoughts and observations, shine the light of your heart on the flowers you are growing, and keep it weeded of fearful criticism, judgments, attacks, and projections of needless fears onto the people you love. The harvest you’ll reap will be bountiful and nourishing – worth every bit of the effort you expend developing your green thumb for rewarding relationships.

An Experience with Deepak Chopra

2006-10-26T15:04:00.000-05:00

Last week the universe presented me several opportunities to encounter Dr. Deepak Chopra. Mid-week I happened to catch an interview with him on the Today Show. He was just getting started when time was up. Ann Curry commented that simply being in his presence felt relaxing to her. He talked about his newly released book, Life After Death: The Burden of Proof.

On Thursday, I flew to Atlanta to visit a good friend. Friday I found an ad in the newspaper for a lecture by Dr. Chopra the next afternoon at the Unity Church of North Atlanta. We called and made reservations. Later that day, after lunch at Whole Foods, we wandered into Borders Books. I asked if they had copies of Dr. Chopra's newest book. We had just missed him. He had been there autographing it. I bought a copy. By the time of the seminar on Saturday, I had read almost half of it. Obviously it is fascinating and absorbing.

This was not my first experience hearing Dr. Chopra speak. I attended workshops with him in Dallas on two occasions and have also heard him speak here in Oklahoma City. I've read many of his books and listened to his tapes. But this time was different. I found him more available, warmer, a great story teller, and as always, an accomplished teacher.

From stories about his father's death to a memorable encounter with his granddaughter, he was engaging and exciting to hear. He talked about conscious living and conscious dying. He made clear that being conscious and awake is vital to both living and dying well. There are no co-incidences. We are all connected. Life is about birth and death, continuously occuring. Our cells die and replace themselves almost completely every year that we live. Cancer cells are ones that have forgotten how to die.

I took copious notes - something I rarely do these days. On Sunday, I actually typed them - a first for me. There was lots worth saving and remembering along with what Dr. Chopra covers in his new book. I recommend that you read it. What could be more fascinating than this superb guide to understanding the really big questions all of us must face.

VIBE Machine

2006-10-17T16:29:00.000-05:00

We have a great new resource available at my office, Options Now, Inc., 11912 N. Pennsylvania, Suite D-3, in Oklahoma City. It is a VIBE Machine, invented by Gene Koonce who lives and works in Greeley, CO. Building upon research done in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Gene developed this machine that lifts the vibrations of the human energy field to an optimal level – its natural state of being. Because we are constantly bombarded by toxic substances that we eat, polluted air that we breathe, and a negative energetic environment that includes all the electronic devices we use, our natural energy vibration rate is lowered. When we hold negative beliefs and fail to adequate process our feelings, our energy vibration rate is depleted also. Aging lowers our energy vibration rate as well. The lower our energy level sinks, the more prone we are to illness.

By sitting in front of the vibe machine for a period of 30 seconds to 4 or 5 minutes, the oscillation rate of the cells of the body is lifted back toward normal, optimal levels. With new energy, the body is empowered to correct what needs to be corrected. It is like recharging a battery that has almost lost its power. The new charge helps the body to function properly again.

Sitting with the vibe machine is painless and pleasant. We suggest that you set an intention for healing and manifesting what you want to create in your life. Focus on your intention as you receive the energy sent out by the machine. It cycles on for 30 seconds, off for 30 seconds, and then on again for the time period you chose for your session. At Options Now, we use muscle testing to determine how long each person should sit with the machine at each session. During the off cycles, you should drink water to help the body flush out toxins that are released. The water you bring into the room with the vibe machine is also energized and holds it charge for six to eight hours. It is important to continue drinking this water after the vibe machine session is over.

I am noticing interesting and exciting changes in my clients who use the machine consistently. With new energy available to them, they are moving ahead and doing what they need to do to make their lives work better. They report that they feel better, have more energy, less physical pain, and a much more optimistic attitude about life. I’ve certainly found these results for myself.

Gene Koonce, the vibe machine’s inventor, will be our guest on Graceful Living on Sunday, October 29 from 4-5 PM. He’ll be available to take calls and answer your questions as well as to tell you about the very interesting experiences users of the vibe machine have had in enhancing their well-being. You can hear the program live in Oklahoma City by tuning into KTOK AM 1000 or on the Internet by going to www.ktok.com and clicking on Listen Live during the 4-5 PM Central time period. A week after the program airs, you can hear a recording of it without commercials by going to Graceful Living Radio and clicking on the audio button.

If you want to experience the vibe machine at Options Now, it is available for new users from 9-4 Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 10 – 1. Cost is $5.00 per session. We have water available for $1.00 per bottle or you can bring your own.

New Book Offers Hope for Cancer Patients

2006-09-13T15:29:00.000-05:00

The Heart of Healing: Facing Cancer and Other Life-Threatening Illnesses

This book is about hope and miracles of healing. It’s a book I didn’t want to write about experiences I didn’t want to have. It’s my story of facing the monster none of us wants to meet. But in meeting and living with it I’ve found myself, new faith, and love that transcends what I previously thought I was possible.

In December, 1999, I was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer. I knew the medical prognosis was not good. I also knew I wasn’t yet ready to die.

Fortunately for all my professional life I have embraced the holistic paradigm for healing. I knew immediately that my illness was not just physical. I realized it was a powerful signal from my body that I needed to make sweeping changes in my life – changes I didn’t really want to make – changes that would take me far from my comfort zone into territory I didn’t want to travel.

The holistic approach to healing includes addressing, not just the physical dimension of being, but also emotional issues, mental beliefs, and spiritual connections. It takes into account the outer context of our lives as well– important relationships at home, at work, with friends, and with the whole culture we share. Holistic healing isn’t about blaming or judging ourselves for being ill. Rather it empowers us. Instead of seeing ourselves as random victims of an incurable sickness, it helps us see ourselves as people with choices and responsibilities who can make a positive difference in the outcome of whatever we are facing.

As I drove away from the medical center where a radiologist had just told me that I might have the very worst form of breast cancer, I knew this was a massive wake-up call that would force me to address areas in my life that I didn’t want to disturb. My ego was receiving a gigantic humbling blow that ultimately meant I had to make changes I had almost killed myself trying to avoid – changes others might not understand or approve.

I already knew and trusted the inner spiritual voice that guides me as I work with clients in my private practice as a psychotherapist. This inner voice knows. It is like an internal radar system that keeps me on the life path I’m here to travel. I had been ignoring its urgings to attend to what wasn’t working for me in my life. In those first hours of facing my terror of cancer, I knew that somehow I would get through this challenge and do whatever it was that I had to do. I wanted to live to see my grandchildren grow-up and my daughters thrive. I wanted to do more writing. I had more work to do with the people I see. I love life. It was time to face my fears and no longer allow them to control my choices.

Since that day, I’ve found amazing allies, both seen and unseen, who continue to stand by me day after day. Many people told me that I would write the story I was living. I didn’t think I would dare do so – at least not for a long, long time. I didn’t want to tempt fate. I was still afraid of the monster I was mastering.

One thing I was clear about. I was not going to engage in a battle with that monster. I knew that fighting against it would only give it more power. Instead I chose to embrace it as my teacher rather than my foe. I believed that when I learned the lessons the “cellular challenge” had come to teach me, it would no longer be necessary in my life.

Gradually I grew through my fears. Everyday became a treasure and a gift. God gave me all that I needed and more and helped me deal with each step along the way. I already had four wonderful grandchildren. I was blessed with three more within the next two years – twin girls who live close to me and a little boy in Connecticut. Holding those babies and loving them as I do was potent medicine. I found spiritual teachers, a psychological therapist, and the medical doctor I needed. I made the major changes I had to make. I experienced everyday miracles. My faith grew. My joys multiplied. I was transformed.

Ultimately writing the book that is now available was a natural part of my healing process. Of the four books I’ve written to date, I know it is the most personal. I wrote it with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I wrote it from my heart. I wrote it to share with others the wonderful healing resources I’ve found through my travels.

Its title is The Heart of Healing: Facing Cancer and Other Life-Threatening Illnesses. I wish it had been available to me long before I had to face the “cellular challenge.” I hope you’ll read it if you’re already on the road I’ve traveled. If you are not on that path, I also hope you’ll read it, listen to your inner voice, and be spared the journey I had to make because I waited until my back was against the wall.

Bon Voyage!

The Heart of Healing: Facing Cancer and Other Life-Threatening Illnesses
Available at www.lovetips.com and www.amazon.com
$12.95 plus shipping
Also at Options Now, Inc. and Jean Barnes Books

For More Information, Contact Elizabeth Deerinwater
11912 N. Pennsylvania, Suite D-3
Oklahoma City, OK 73120
405-843-5258; 405-823-1824; 800-345-8477

Finding Meaning In The Second Half of Life

2006-05-23T14:55:00.001-05:00

An interview with James Hollis, Ph.D., Jungian analyst and director of the Houston Jung Educational Institute, highlighted the May 22, 2006, edition of Graceful Living: Facing Life Challenges, the weekly radio program Eileen Ravella and I host on www.ktok.com from 4 -5 CDT. Dr. Hollis is author of Finding Meaning In The Second Half of Life as well as a number of other books.

We began by asking Dr. Hollis to comment on how he sees the tasks each of us face during the first phase of our adult years and how those tasks evolve as we approach mid-life and beyond. He responded by talking about our early years as times when we are building our capacities to handle life and deal with the expectations of our parents, teachers, jobs, and relationships. During this period of life, we are developing ego strength so we can cope well with the challenges that are inevitable aspects of becoming independently functioning adults. Once we've mastered these demands and become able to stand firmly with and for ourselves while also honoring our relationships, we're ready to move on to the next major growth phase of life - when we are called to deal with what our souls expect of us.

Various wake-up calls alert us to our soul's agenda that we fulfill the purposes we came into this lifetime to accomplish. These wake-up calls take a variety of forms. It begins to dawn on us that all the things we have accomplished and the material gains we've made don't really satisfy us fully. We may experience depression that doesn't relate to a major loss or to a chemical imbalance. Perhaps we endure a divorce we didn't want or seek. Some become bored or burned out with their professional life. Teen or adult children may be acting out or having difficulty coming to grips with attending to their own separate lives. Illness may strike and cause us to look carefully at how we are investing our precious time on earth. We may notice that we have not been true to our deepest yearnings for connection with our souls and the realm of spirit. We may lose loved ones whose deaths remind us of our own mortality. A series of dreams may haunt us with symbols and suggestions that a course correction is in order in our lives. A nagging sense that more is possible than we are experiencing may trigger us into exploring our inner depths with conscious intention. Addictions that control us may cause such pain in our relationships that we are forced to look at what we are trying to escape by numbing ourselves to our emotional and spiritual life.

Whatever form your wake-up calls take, pay attention! The sooner you listen and heed your soul's call for connection, the sooner you'll start to reap the rewards of living in tune with your life purpose.

You may be thinking that you have no idea what your life purpose could possibly be. If so, you're not alone. Find someone you can trust to talk with about getting more connected with your soul's inner voice. Therapy with an enlightened teacher may help you tune in more fully to yourself, your soul, and the unconscious patterns you've carried with you since childhood that may be blinding you to the bigger picture of your life. Keeping a dream journal is another great choice. Talk with your trusted mentor about your dreams and work together to unlock the messages they send you from your innermost soul self. Pay attention to times when you feel absolutely congruent and peaceful doing whatever it is you are doing at those moments. Feelings of completeness and joy are signals that you're right on course with what is engaging you. Ask for spiritual direction and follow the gentle urgings you hear like "read this book," "turn on the radio - there is something on that you need to hear," or "call this person you've been thinking of," or "write that letter you've been intending to write."

Get curious about who you truly are and what you're here to do. What could be more interesting? What could possibly be more rewarding than truly feeling you're on the life course that fits best for you?

To help yourself along, I suggest you read Dr. Hollis's book. It is a great guide from a wise teacher. And take time to listen to our interview with Dr. Hollis by going to www.gracefullivingradio.com and clicking on the audio button.

Eileen and I hope you'll join us on Sunday afternoons at 4 CDT from whereever you are via www.ktok.com where you can click on Listen Live. Please call us during the program or E-mail us through the web site with your questions and comments. You'll find a listing of upcoming programs on the web site. We've got some wonderful interviews planned including one with my spiritual teacher, Ron Roth, on June 25.

Graceful Living: Facing Life Challenges - New Radio Program

2006-03-27T15:03:00.000-06:00

Graceful Living: Facing Life Challenges is the name of my new radio program which airs on Sunday afternoons from 4-5 Central time on KTOK AM 1000 in Oklahoma City. My co-host is Eileen Ravella, a physician's assistant practicing family medicine and an expert in end of life care. We talk about the big and little things in life that teach us to stretch and grow into more of who we are when we choose to face and embrace them rather than allowing ourselves to feel victimized and defeated by them.

Though you can't hear the program on the radio unless you are in the Oklahoma City listening area, you can tune in live by going to www.KTOK.com and clicking on Listen Live while the program is on the air. If you can't listen at that time, you can go to our program web site, www.gracefullivingradio.com and click on the audio button to take you to the programs that are archived there. On the web audio, you are spared the commercials but you can't call in. Listening live on the web, you can participate should you choose to do so. You'll also find our scheduled topics for the next few weeks on the web site.

This week we'll focus on Verbal Abuse and how to deal with it. I hope you'll check us out. It's so much fun for me to have this wonderful opportunity to do something I really enjoy doing. I feel really blessed that this opportunity has opened for me.

I also have a new book coming out soon. It's called The Heart of Healing: Facing Cancer and Other Life Threatening Illnesses. I'll keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, I appreciate your support and any help you can give in telling people about this program. Our first session dealt with hope and how vital it is to coping with tough challenges. Last week, we interviewed a couple - actually Eileen's brother and his wife. She has metatastic breast cancer. We talked with them about how they are facing her illness in the context of their faith and their love for each other.

Please tune in on Sunday and give us a call with your questions or comments. Or listen at your leisure via www.gracefullivingradio.com. We are sponsored by Good Shepherd Hospice and are very grateful to this enlightened and caring company for their support in bringing this program to you.

Red Lights, Yellow Lights, Green Lights: How Do You Know When You've Found The Right Romantic Partner?

2006-02-27T13:30:00.000-06:00

Many times I've heard people wonder aloud if they've found the "right" partner. That is an intriguing and important question. It also is a misleading one. Finding the "right" man or woman implies that your happiness depends upon someone outside yourself - an almost magical other person who is perfectly suited to you and ready, willing, and able to transport you into the blissful "happily ever after" of romantic fairy tales.

Not that there is anything wrong with the juicy joy of falling in love and relishing a delicious romance. That phase of a relationship lays an essential foundation of bonding between life partners. It helps them establish a strong enough connection to motivate them to stick together when - further down the road - the challenges of sustaining a committed relationship may confound them.

The "right" partner is not a person with whom there will be no tough times. The "right" partner is one whose personality, history, and coping styles will force you to grow and heal the wounds you suffered as a child. He or she is also a person who is willing to look inside, take responsibility for his or her own healing issues, and join you in a shared growth process that nurtures you both as individuals and strengthens your relationship as well. You want someone who is reliable, honest, and real.

Obviously, it is important to listen to both your head and your heart when you choose a partner for life. Chemistry is powerful - sometimes so potent that you may be tempted to ignore danger signals and convince yourself that you've found Mr. or Ms. Right, even when there are plenty of flashing bright lights trying to alert you to protect yourself from probable disappointment and even disaster.

Here are some warning signs to heed:

Flashing Red Lights: Is your partner

Physically violent
Obsessed with sex
Addicted to alcohol or drugs
Intensely jealous and overly possessive
Engaged in criminal activity
A convicted criminal

Red Lights: Is your partner

Financially irresponsible
Resentful of authority figures
Dishonest

Does your partner

Tell only part of the truth
Not keep promises
Lie about his or her credentials
Make excuses for unacceptable behavior
Practice poor personal hygiene
Have a history of infidelity

Is your partner

Unable to keep a job
Intolerant of others
Prone to telling only part of the truth
A pathological liar

Yellow Light Warning Signs: Does your potential partner

Expect perfection
Pretend to be a victim of life, other people, misfortune, etc.
Blame you or other people when things go wrong
Refuse to make plans in advance and keep them
Think getting help for problems is a bad idea
Have to be right
Refuse to listen to you and understand your point of view
Refuse to express himself
Deny feelings and refuse to talk about them
Have to be in control

Is your potential partner

Selfish and self-absorbed
Chronically late
Overly involved with parents or not involved at all
Afraid to change and grow
A negative thinker who is critical and judgmental

Green Lights: Your potential partner

Likes children, other people, and animals
Is positive about life, himself, and you
Appreciates beauty and nature
Has fun without relying on alcohol or drugs
Has a good sense of humor and laughs easily
Is sensitive to others - empathic - romantic
Is physically healthy
Is intelligent and has interests that are compatible with yours
Is honest and trustworthy - capable of fidelity
Is financially responsible but not obsessed with money
Is not obsessed with sex
Is open about himself and his history
Is self-ex-pressive and creative
Is a good listener and is genuinely interested in who you are
Is able to tolerate uncertainty
Accepts "no" when "no" is your answer
Says "no' when "no" is appropriate
Enjoys private time
Respects your needs for time alone as well as time together
Is capable of spontaneity as well as of planning ahead
Is tuned into his feelings
Thinks clearly and makes wise decisions

Choosing a life partner is one of the most important decisions you'll make in your lifetime. While that person won't and can't be the answer to all your needs, hurts, desires, and dreams, he or she can be your peer, your teammate, your lover, and your friend. Traveling your life journey with a trusted companion is an immense blessing. Still the person who becomes your mate doesn't hold the key to your fulfilling your life purpose, growing into the person you are meant to be, and living in peace within yourself and in your relationships. You are still you, no matter who you marry. You have your challenges to address, and he or she has theirs. If both of you grow as individuals and as loving partners, your relationship will thrive. Neither of you can do the work that belongs to and must to addressed by the other. So look for a partner who shares your commitment to becoming whole and healed of old hurts so you can be allies on your life journey, not competitors, victims, rescuers, or villians.

A New Earth - A New Book from Eckhart Tolle

2006-02-16T13:42:00.000-06:00

If you liked The Power of Now, you'll want to read Tolle's latest book, A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life's Purpose. It is so full of wisdom that I am now reading it for the second time.

What I want to share with you today is about the healing power of accepting "what is" in the present moment. Tolle points out that all stress and distress results from resisting what is happening right now. For example, if as I am composing this blog, I am fully present and focused on this experience, I am also relaxed, open, and in a creative, pleasant mode. But if I am thinking about what else I might need to be doing or what I have to do later today, or any other possibility that might pop in my head to distract my attention from this process, I am not fully present. I am resisting what I am doing, allowing my thoughts to take me away from the present, and creating stress for myself by doing so.

You might think about activities you enjoy where you are fully absorbed in what you are doing and free of distracting mind chatter. I was talking with friends about this kind of experience today. We agreed that certain activities provide us with the kind of focus that is both relaxing and absorbing. Playing a computer game like Free Cell, working a crossword puzzle, doing a numbers puzzle, exercising, cooking, cleaning, or participating in a sport which requires concentration and full attention are examples that came to mind. When the conscious mind is totally engaged in an activity like one of these, we are free of the idle thinking through which we blindly create pain for ourselves and others.

In our culture, we all but worship the mind and the thoughts we think. Often we make no distinction between ourselves and our thoughts. Unconsciously we make our thoughts and the stories we tell ourselves the rulers of our lives.

It is a huge leap in consciousness to realize that we are not our thoughts. We also are not our emotions or our bodies. We are much more than what we think, what we feel, or the physical bodies we wear. We are spiritual beings who are able to observe our thoughts, notice our feelings, and appreciate our bodies without becoming totally identified with them. When we tune into the higher Self within us that observes our thoughts, and feelings, and bodies, we free ourselves from being their slaves. We also open the way to being fully present in the eternal Now, experiencing "what is" rather than ruminating on "what was" or "what might be."

Recently I've been noticing - without judging myself for what I see - when I feel stressed or tense. Invariably what I realize is that I am resisting what is taking place in the moment. I resist by wishing things were different, making up stories in my head about what might happen that I wouldn't like, telling myself I ought to be in some other place or engaged in some other activity, or imagining what might be going on with other people who are important to me.

Please notice that I am noticing without judging what I see. If I get into judging what I notice, I'm into another form of resisting "what is" and making myself feel bad or unworthy in the process. Judging "what is" simply creates pain and dissonance. It serves no useful purpose. The key to witnessing our inner process is doing so with non-judging awareness and with acceptance of what we see. Once we notice what we are thinking or telling ourselves, we have choices we weren't aware of before we recognized what we are doing or saying to ourselves.

Non-judging awareness of our inner processes not only give us choices, it also heals. Accepting "what is" heals. Resisting or rejecting "what is" wounds us. We've all been wounded enough. here is no need to add more pain to what we already unconsciously carry and need to release.

I invite you to join me in noticing when you are resisting being fully present in the moment that is. I also suggest that if you haven't yet discovered Eckhart Tolle's work, you do so. Start with The Power of Now. Continue with A New Earth. Both books will open wonderful doors of awareness and peace within you. There are no better antidotes for anxiety and depression than knowing how to be centered in the present, moment by moment, and day by day.

2006-02-07T14:36:00.000-06:00

The new year has arrived after an eventful 2005 marked by monumental natural disasters as well as dedicated and generous acts of kindness, compassion, and love. It was a year that taught us that we are all are connected, not isolated beings living isolated lives where what happens in one corner of the world can be ignored in another.

This is good news. The bad news is that we have a long way to go before we learn to live and behave with that truth firmly in mind. When, as a culture and a world, we get it, much of what we've been taught and accepted as truth will crumble. Sooner or later, we will have to realize that what we do to one person or one country comes home to profoundly affect us in the end.

Fast travel, internet access, instant communication, and more information easily at hand than ever in the history of the world have transformed our reality. We use the technology, love the travel, spend hours on the internet, and enjoy it all. It's time we also wake-up and reflect on the necessity of updating the beliefs, attitudes, and platitudes we've blindly accepted that often are more suited to the days of the horse and buggy than to the world of 2006.

Here are some recommended updates for your internal mental software that you may want to consider:

"Us and them" are no longer applicable. All of us share this planet which gets relatively smaller every day.

It is no longer a question of who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys" or who is "right" and who is "wrong". Dualistic thinking is much too limited and simplistic for dealing with today's world. Each of us can be both good and bad, right and wrong, wonderful and terrible. We must move beyond polarized black - white thinking.

Our survival depends upon discovering the power of seeking to understand divergent points of view without labeling them as bad or good, right or wrong, politically acceptable or politically unacceptable. When we seek genuine understanding, third possibilities that are new and synergistic tend to emerge. Such synergistic possibilities take both perspectives into account and shift thinking into expanded dimensions of consciousness where we discover possibilities we wouldn't have considered previously.

In order to truly understand other people and other points of view, we must learn to listen to them with open minds and hearts. We may be sorely tempted to react to what is different from our own ways of thinking and seeing. Such differences can feel as if they threaten our survival and trigger our old brain survival modes that tell us to fight, flee, or freeze out perspectives we don't like to hear. Our challenge is to notice our knee jerk impulse to react and instead contain our reaction. Once we put the reins on our reactivity, we can engage our brains' more evolved frontal lobes and reflect on what we are hearing. Then we can respond thoughtfully to the one who is speaking. This is much harder to do than it may sound. Old habits of knee jerk reacting don't die easily.

One way to help contain reactivity is to learn to mirror what we hear before making a response. This is especially important when we feel reactive and find it difficult to hold onto ourselves.

Mirroring gives us a chance to digest more thoroughly what we have heard and to allow it to penetrate our consciousness. It also allows us to keep a healthy boundary between ourselves and the person we are hearing. By giving that person an accurate recounting of what he or she has said, we make clear that we are hearing accurately without inserting our own editing, interpreting, or modifying into the process.

In effect, we hold up a mirror that allows the person speaking to hear himself or herself more clearly. If we invite that person to continue speaking, we will learn more about what is beneath the words we have heard. Both speaker and listener will discover more of what the speaker wants to communicate. By speaking and being mirrored, the speaker also comes to more fully understand and articulate what he or she is thinking or feeling.

Mirroring another person is a great gift. As babies and children, we need mirroring to discover who we are. As adults, being mirrored is healing, relieving, and respectful. It is a gift all of us need to experience, especially from the people who are closest to us and affect us most deeply. Even with strangers, mirroring is a respectful gift that recognizes our connection with each other. By making the effort required to understand and accept what others tells us, we'll also come to more fully understand and accept ourselves. Everyone wins in the process.

Another essential dimension of effective communication in the small world of 2006 is developing the capacity to validate someone else's point of view even when we don't agree with what they say or believe. To validate another person's perspective is not to agree with them. Rather it is to put yourself in their shoes and make the effort to see how other human beings might think and feel as they do. In effect, you say to them that you respect them, that you value what they share with you, and that you are willing to make the effort required to understand what they tell you. It requires that you stretch yourself and step outside the familiar, comfortable box of your own beliefs and convictions and explore how life and the world looks to those whose belief boxes are different from your own. This assists you in realizing that no one has total access to the ultimate truths that affect us all. By opening our minds to others, we expand our capacities to embrace more facets of the larger picture that includes the whole of mankind.

Beyond validating what others tell you, there is also the vital dimension of expressing genuine empathy for what they feel. Empathy means being tuned into the emotions that are verbally expressed as well as those that may be felt and seen by the listener but not mentioned by the speaker. Feelings are described by one word like angry, sad, happy, anxious, frightened, disappointed, confused, hopeful, excited, discouraged, successful, or blessed. When you express empathy by saying something like "I imagine you might be feeling....," you are sensing and guessing. The other person is the expert on how he or she feels. If he or she disagrees with the guess you make, you accept what they say and simply mirror the different feeling or feelings they express. You say something like, "So you're not angry, you are confused and disappointed."

Listening for feelings that are verbally and silently expressed helps you more fully tune into both the person who is speaking and your own emotional state as you listen. It conveys your interest in and sensitivity to the dialogue you are sharing.

By making the effort required to listen so carefully, you recognize that you are both a distinct, unique individual as well as a participant in a world much larger than you. It helps you grow beyond simply being absorbed in yourself and your opinions into being cognizant of and genuinely interested in the connection you share with others. It conveys your respect for them and your honoring of both your common bonds and the ways each of you is different.

There is another important point to consider. By being open to caring about the needs of others you also open the way for others to be more concerned about yours. It is not that you discount yourself to please others, hoping that they will reciprocate by discounting themselves in your favor. Rather it is that you know that you count, other people count, and the context you share counts as well. Each person is responsible for himself or herself as well as responsible to others and to their shared connection with the larger whole they jointly create.

You may be wondering how careful listening, mirroring, validating what you hear, and expressing empathy for others can make a difference in the relatively small world of 2006. You are one vital part of this world. What you do affects you and all others whose lives you touch - even in casual encounters. Your commitment to mastering these skills and using them means that one more person in today's world has become much more conscious of and open to living the "I count, you count, the context we share counts" ideal. Every person who grows into practicing this vision has a multiplying effect on all the rest of humanity.

Perhaps you've heard the story of the hundreth monkey or of Rupert Sheldrake's principle of morphoic resonance. Sheldrake discovered during research and observations he made in the 1940's, that when one member of a species develops a new skill or takes a skill to a new level, the way opens for other members of the same species to master that new skill as well. Sheldrake recognized this truth through his observations of birds and their habits.

The hundreth monkey story tells about a monkey living on an island where sweet potatoes were a diet stable. One day one monkey took a sweet potato to the beach and washed the dirt and mud from it before eating it. Soon other monkeys on the island were washing their sweet potatoes too. Then one day, on a different island, a monkey native to that island washed its sweet potato for the first time. It wasn't long before others joined suit. The point of the story is that when enough monkeys adopt a new behavior, a critical mass is reached. Suddenly there is a quantum leap in consciousness that affects all other members of the species. The hundreth monkey is the one who creates that critical mass.

Each of us can contribute to creating that critical mass for mankind so that we adopt new and more evolved ways of thinking, speaking, listening, and behaving. Watch for blogs to come about speaking and behaving in ways that respect self, others, and context. In the meantime, I invite you to make conscious listening one of your goals for the 2006. It will help make yours a truly Happy New Year!

Spiritual Intensive with Ron Roth in Chicago

2005-11-07T14:38:00.000-06:00

This week I travel to Chicago for a four day intensive spiritual workshop with Ron Roth. It has been my privilege to know Ron and experience his workshops since the first one I attended in February, 2001. I've been a regular at these twice yearly events since September, 2003. At that time, I entered his education program and now have completed the first level of training and am entering the next phase of this spiritual growth process.

I discovered Ron when a friend suggested I read The Healing Path of Prayer. It is still one of my favorites of his books, because it spoke to me so powerfully when I first read it. I return to it again and again for inspiration and guidance.

When the book came to me, I was still reeling from being diagnosed with breast cancer and having a mastectomy in December, 1999. Ron's book gave me my first real hope for healing. In it, he describes how he discovered that the healing power of the Holy Spirit moves through him to bring physical healing as well as spiritual, mental, and emotional healing to people he and prays for and touches. I decided I would go to an intensive with him when I was well enough to do so. The following February, I was on my way.

He warned many times during his talks with the large group gathered together in Scottsdale that year that when we pray for healing what we receive is not always what we think we want and need. I prayed for healing. What I received was not what I would have consciously chosen. It involved undergoing some massive changes in my life. Yet what evolved was exactly what I needed. Through all I've experiened during the past four years, I've come to live with a much deeper faith in God than I had ever imagined previously.

During my growing up years in the Episcopal Church, I loved to hear the phrase "the peace that passes all understanding." I wondered how that would really feel and if it would ever be possible for me. Now, much of the time, I do experience that peace and a deep knowing of the constant presence of the Divine in my life. Quite simply, my life has been transformed through the work of the Holy Spirit.

One of the things I most value about Ron is that he makes clear to everyone that it is not he who does the healing. It is the Holy Spriit working through him. He also reminds us of Jesus' teaching that the healing gifts He demonstrated throughout His ministry are also within all of us if we open our hearts to receive them and allow ourselves to be used.

Ron is a former Roman Catholic priest. He is a devout Christian though he affirms that there are many paths to becoming God realized beings. In his workshops, there are people present from many faiths - Jews, Buddhists, Christians, and others. We experience that God's love is inclusive and unconditional, not exclusive and conditional upon belonging to one "right" group.

Ron's teaching and healing touch are great blessings to me and to thousands of others who gather to grow and heal in his presence. If you would like to ask for prayers for your needs, go to his web site, www.ronroth.com, and make your request.

I'll tell you more about my experiences when I return from Chicago.

With peace and blessings,
Martha

Imago Conference in Atlanta

2005-11-03T14:34:00.000-06:00

Last week I attended the annual conference of IRI, Imago Relationships International, in Atlanta. It was lovely to be with good friends and participate in excellent workshops on Imago work with couples and singles. IRI is planning a world wide Valentine's Day celebration in 2006 sponsored by Alanis Morrisette, Dr. Harville Hendrix, and Tango Magazine. There will be a very large gathering in New York City and smaller events around the country and the world. The theme is Keep it Real: Practice Imago on Valentine's Day, 2006. In Oklahoma City, I'll be hosting the event for singles and couples who want to have fun and learn more about Imago. It will be an exciting hour with refreshments and activities. I hope you'll plan to attend with your partner or a friend before going on to dinner or other romantic events. I'll keep you posted about where we will gather from 6:30 to 7:30 on Valentine's Day.

On my way to the airport to fly to Atlanta, I got an urge to go to the bookstore, because I wanted something to read on my trip. When I arrived, I found a real treasure - a book I hadn't heard about but knew immediately that I had to read. I wasn't disappointed. It's a wonderful resource by Eckhart Tolle called A New Earth. Tolle begins with a marvelous description of the blooming of the first flower to appear on earth. He goes on to use that as a metaphor for the flowering of consciousness that is taking place now on earth. On Friday, when I presented a workshop on Bringing the Spiritual Dimension into Imago Couples work, I gave each participant a long stemmed rose to symbolize their expanding consciousness as therapists and healers. I loved giving the workshop and sharing experiences with those who participated.

Another favorite experience for me was a workshop I attended titled Couples in Emotion and Motion. It was given by Susan Frieder, Ph.D., who lives on Maui and uses movement and dance in her work with couples. She led those of us participating in non-verbal mirroring experiences that were delightful and very powerful ways of deeply connecting with the people who were our partners for these exercises. The man who was my partner was someone I hadn't met previously. We never talked except briefly to process the experience after it was completed. Without any words at all, we felt a genuine connection with each other. When I went to my next workshop that afternoon, I wasn't surprised to discover that the seat I chose was next to the one he had picked and left marked with his workshop materials while he was away from the room. When he appeared, we laughed about still being on the same wavelength.

Tonight I'm looking forward to the second of a series of free workshop seminars I'm presenting at my office each month. I'll be talking about Mastering Your Needs and Feelings and recognizing how our needs and feelings connect. If you're in the Oklahoma City area, I hope you'll join me from 7-9 at my office, 11912 N. Pennsylvania, Suite D-3, tonight, November 3. Next month's session will be on Thursday, December 1. The topic is Holiday Gratitude, Grief, and Forgiveness.

With peace and blessing,
Martha